Learning to Listen…to God & to OthersSample

If We Miss His Voice, We Miss Everything!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it best when he penned, “The first service that one owes to others is the ministry of listening. And the beginning of love for others is listening to them.”

Let’s get honest as we get started here and admit that most people need serious help in this area. If there is one thing you could do to deepen your life in the Lord and breathe life into your relationships with other Christians, and people in general, it would be to become a better listener.

A skillful listener is the key to having more than just electroplated thin relationships…strictly on the surface. You know what I mean…conversation after conversation that might as well just bemusing about the weather, sports, or listening to someone talk about themselves. And listening is the fundamental necessity for intimacy with Christ. How have we missed such a critical component of life?

Listening is just one form of communication—though crucial—along with reading, writing, speaking, and non-verbal forms (body language and visual communication). But, we don’t teach ourselves to read…and writing doesn’t come naturally. How many people do you know who are just natural speakers and love to get up in front of others and talk? Why would we think people naturally listen well?

I’ve been in every level of educational leadership for more than 40 years, and to my amazement, I have not encountered a single course on listening skills in any curriculum anywhere. Somehow, we have missed teaching the crucial skill of listening.

Few things challenge our impatience and selfishness as much as listening to someone with our full attention. When was the last time someone with deep empathy, understanding, and tenderness listened to you? They didn’t jump in with a similar story, get interrupted by their phone, or end the conversation abruptly and rush off? How did that make you feel when someone really listened and understood you?

The most important thing I will say to you in these five days is this - we must learn to hear the voice of the Lord. If we miss His voice, we have missed everything. And you will see in the next few days that learning to listen to the voice of the Lord and that of others is strikingly similar and remarkably simple.