As we cannot read people's minds, we can never know what someone else may be thinking. We can guess, and the guess may be right, but it could also be wrong. So when we begin to offer advice or criticism based on a guess, we may end up doing great harm. Solomon once wrote, He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him (Proverbs 18:13 NKJV). When we jump to conclusions, things can often backfire.
Hence, the importance of being a good listener, especially if we are trying to encourage someone or win their soul. Job was a man in need of comfort having lost his health, wealth, and all of his children. He had three friends that came to comfort him. At first, they just sat with him and no one said a word for seven days. That was the best thing they did. For after they started talking, Job would say, "Miserable comforters are you all!" (Job 16:2b).
We may have good intentions, like Job’s friends, but listening is often better than speaking. When someone confides in us about the pain they are enduring, we sometimes want to say, "Well I understand, because this happened to me. Let me tell you about it." You may think you are helping, but really you are just talking about yourself and not focusing on their pain. The late Toby Keith sang a song with the lyrics, "I want to talk about me." His point was that instead of listening about you all the time, I want you to finally listen to me. Our brothers and sisters need us to listen to them.
The Bible says that God hears our prayers (1 John 5:14,15). If the most high God is willing to listen to our attempts to pray, should we not be willing to engage and listen to others? It is this type of mindset that we are to cultivate. In writing to "beloved brethren," James said we should be swift to hear and slow to speak (James 1:19). That is how we should receive the word of God, but it is also how we should interact with others.
As children of God, we must endeavor to comfort others the way our heavenly Father comforts us (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:3,4). One way to practice that is to be a good listener. Listen to someone without trying to think of an answer before the other person is through talking. Sometimes, if not most times, just listening is more comforting to a person than anything we could ever say. Certainly our words matter, as the Scripture says, A word spoken in due season, how good it is (Proverbs 15:23b). But if we concentrate on listening rather than responding, I believe our words, when we do offer them, will be more helpful.
When a person needs someone to listen to him, our heavenly Father always stands ready. Since we are to imitate our Father (Ephesians 5:1), so must we, as the church, be ready to listen. That is what we signed up for, as the apostle Peter reminds us: Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22). Listening is loving.
Brotherly, Jamie
