By Dan Blair, a marriage counselor and family counselor.
What are some criteria for effective listening in the Bible? Some seek to correct more than connect when “listening” and find the discussion frustrating. Use the following as a checklist to accomplish effective listening:
Do you fully understand? Dig deeper.
Psalms 56:8: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
Are you reactive to what the other is saying? Slow down.
James 1:19: “You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.”
Proverbs 18:13: “He who answers before listening–that is his folly and his shame.”
Is the other side of an issue important? Value it.
Philippians 2:3:“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”
Are you working together?
1 Peter 3:8: “Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.”
Listen
When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving advice
You have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
And you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way
You are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
And you feel you have to do something to solve my problems
You have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I ask is that you listen
Not talk or do – just hear me.
Advice is cheap: the world is full of free advice.
And I can DO for myself. I’m not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel,
No matter how irrational, then I stop trying to convince you,
And can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.
And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.
So please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk,
Wait a minute for your turn, and I’ll listen to you.
(Anonymous)
More on communication.
