Learning to Listen…to God & to OthersSample

Listening to Listen

A few years ago, I decided to quit offering anyone advice. I realized that if anyone wanted my advice, they would ask for it. But I didn’t foresee the serendipitous effect that would ignite. I immediately noticed that I was listening more to understand.

One profound problem that blocks our genuine listening to others is the propensity to give advice. Gratuitous advice reveals that you think you know more than the person you are talking with and that what you share is correct.

This gratuitous advice stream is particularly harmful when conversing with someone who is sharing something in the way of a painful situation, emotional trauma, or disappointment. When someone opens up to you, they want to be heard, not given advice. And the last thing they need is to have you compare your experience with theirs.

I hope you have encountered the spiritual experience of listening to someone who needed a compassionate listener. That is the ministry they required. I have observed that people who have shared life’s traumas with others are more likely to be the “good” listeners.

Stephen Covey said, “The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.” It is a weighty space to be in, listening to someone’s heart cry. The worst thing you can do is immediately offer your solution to their problems.

Our goal is to hear the heart of the Lord and others. One of my friends shared this story:

“When my son was in the U. S. Air Force and Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school, they taught downed pilots how to survive. Listening is the number one needed skill to evade capture. We were together on a hike with 10 people. My son and I split off; the leading group was 300 yards away. My son said, “Stop. And listen.” I did for a bit and said, “I don’t hear anything.” He said, “Stop talking, be perfectly still, and just listen.”

“It was nuts. After about two minutes of being still I could hear the entire world around me. The footsteps of the leading group were hundreds of yards away, and they were talking. The wind was blowing, and water was running somewhere I couldn’t see. He said it was one of the hardest things to teach fighter pilots because listening directly opposes how they do life.”

How do you do life?