#WISDOMSample

Learning to Listen

Listening is one of the keys to a healthy marriage.

Listening is one of the keys to a healthy workplace.

Listening is one of the keys to resolving a conflict.

Listening is one of the hardest things for us to do.

Our brains are constantly on the move, waiting and ready to respond to someone in a conversation. The gap between one person finishing their sentence and our reply seems to be only milliseconds, and if not, then the other person looks at us like something is wrong.

Even if we say something horrible, something thoughtless, or something unhelpful, at least we didn’t let the silence get awkward.

In his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about “seeking first to understand, then to be understood.”

This isn’t just a good idea or a “tool” we use to be better at our job.

Understanding requires that we listen, and listen well. Learning to listen is the grittiest of human wisdom.

Proverbs says, “To answer before listening – that is folly and shame.” (Proverbs 18:13)

In other words, to jump in to offer our well-crafted opinion without listening is embarrassing. It’s below us – it’s shameful. To listen and process what we’ve heard before answering helps us to speak with grace and hope into the life of another person.

One of the ways that God has given us for learning to listen is the practice of prayer. Today, look at Psalm 46:10 (“Be still and know that I am God”) and take seriously what it would be like to spend some time just listening to God. The verse doesn’t say, “Get your brain in gear, I am God.” It says, “Be still.” Learning to listen means we slow down our word factory and really hear what’s going on in the world we live in, and in the lives of the people around us.

Try to practice five minutes of total quiet today, just listening to the sounds around you. Do your best to turn down the volume on your thoughts and ideas and just hear what’s happening around you. Then, apply that to your conversations. See what happens.