The act of listening reaches far beyond just the hearing, for in our days, our moments and even our sleep, our ears are active in the act of hearing. Listening is the discerned discipline of hearing. It is focused hearing, the application and discovery of precise answers, meaning and direction in the living. The first occurrence of the word listen in scripture is found in Genesis 4:10. This clearly demonstrates that listening is far more than actual hearing, for Able’s blood surely was not audibly moving molecules of air, as a scream emanating from the ground. Listening then, must be much more than pure physics. In fact, listening and active hearing need not require sound at all! We need not belabor the fact of ear hearing and air vibrating as a method of hearing, but it remains true that hearing must occur for listening’s success, with hearing occurring in many ways. Listening requires reticent rumination. Listening compels compassion. Listening demands disciplined discernment. Listening requires response. Successful listening requires attendance, and, with increased attendance exponentially increasing return as we discover exactly what it is God is saying, wants to do or particularly in counseling, what He wants to say or do with regards to the individual, helping them learn to listen to the Only One who can help them, God alone.
The world, our world riddled with media, clamors for our attendance, entices us with desires, tempts us with a surreal ‘near truths’ of life and living. We are desensitized to evil, resensitized to the importance of offensive living such that little wholesome challenge, and no depth of Godly living remain. Our ears these days seem enticed only to hear that which tickles, brings joy and even a false sense of peace into our lives, and many have bought the lie. The pursuit of happiness, self-worth, and success has become the poster child for listening, leading us to where we walk today, in a mostly shallow world rarely wrestling with angst and truth well. We have been lulled into languish and leisure as the salvo for disappointment and pain, with entertainment and any other escape as the new drug of choice.
Removing the dumping of the clamor requires diligence and fortitude, as one digging their way into a collapsed mine to rescue the trapped within. A renewed drive and daunting determination remains crucial to the task of successful, high quality listening. While truth, absolute truth is being buried by lies, I have found that we must break away from joining in the shoveling on, to the uncovering of that which has been and is trying to be buried; revealing the joy of truth, Godly truth and understanding.
The truth, the absolute truth, can only be found in one being, God, and one book, the Holy Bible. This book has been relegated equal, by even it’s deepest and best proponents, with all other books, getting tossed on the floor, or placed in the part of our cars reserved for feet. But for me, a change is being steeped in my heart. Something wonderful has happened since I have purveyed the pages, and wrestled with the Holy Spirit. In solitude, with God’s word closely at hand, I now find instruction, consolation, healing, truth, power, solace, joy, and purpose within my existence, not 40 days of purpose, every day with purpose. Now, rather than listen to the world, I find greatest peace in listening to God; seeking His face, his righteousness and all I require will be added to my life (Matthew 6:33). I have come to love a world, my daily world, filled with the absence of sound rather than the raging cacophony. Often I find myself not turning on the plasma media god, the digital air wave transponder, or even the mini plate spinner and it is then I can hear, listen and attend to the still, quiet voice of God. I have also found that as I attend to His voice, He gives me ears to listen to the voice of others, becoming an effective tool for His kingdom.
Listening is only valuable listening when vital pieces of information or learning gets placed in proper perspective as consignment in our lives generating wisdom for myself, and others. There are times when we need to put out fires and times when unrequited clamor is the best action. There are times for planning and replanning and times for learning by doing. And between these all is the ever vacillating tension of the in between, neither one extreme nor the other, yet without the discernment, without the practice of listening, insight might as well fall on deaf ears.
The active practice of listening is accomplished through a plethora of means, some appearing as inactivity through waiting, quieting our hearts in anticipation, leaning back in a chair, bowing a head, closing our eyes, taking deep breaths, contemplating, which could also lead to napping or the appearance of sloth. Vigorous listening also includes looking into the eyes of the speaker for nuances and nudges that aren’t fully reflected in their act of speaking, or for nonverbal forms of communication, taking a moment or hours to muse, reflect, wrestle, or extract the heart of the information being transferred into me. However, above all, listening is not the hearing from the individual, but rather hearing from God, what He is doing in their lives, or wants to do. All of us can listen and feel good about feeling bad. While compassion is important as we attend to sharing of where they are, God is doing a work in them and through their angst before us, to stir our hearts in response. Ours is to understand God’s requirements for the development of our collective hearts before Him, and in response to Him.
When our esteemed leader walked the earth in the midst of a huge crowd pressing on Him, Jesus felt His Father’s power exit from his robe into someone. He could have easily continued on His way but because His Father wanted Him to stop, and find out who it was who touched Him, he listened and demonstrated to all of us that He was listening to His Father. When a small crowd brought before Him a woman caught in adultery, yet again He listened to His Father, exposing the evil in each of her accuser’s hearts in such a way that their accusation was turned upon themselves and one by one, no longer remained as her accuser. Yet to that woman, with love, gentleness and the same deep caring, called her to also stop in her sinful ways, giving her the power and charge of Himself to accomplish it.
Listening requires focus and discernment. Often it also requires silence and absence of clamor. Simply established, effective listening is longing, learning and leaning. Longing to hear the still, quiet voice of our Holy Father, His son, Jesus Christ, and the leadings of the Holy Spirit. Learning that which will be uncovered by the engagement of the conversation, leaning on God’s shoulders in such a way that we hear what He is saying to us, on the behalf of others, assisting them in the same act of listening to the only one who can make a difference.
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