Listen Up

Do you listen? I mean really listen?  A good listener is hard to find. We prefer to hear our own voice instead.

Listening does not mean giving advice or gazing deeply into your cell phone while supposedly listening.

A good listener doesn’t doze off in the middle of a friend’s unloading of their problems. However, an occasional question to clarify the subject is permitted.

A good listener takes in the whole conversation, not the big bits that they like. Nor does a good listener share the conversation around the neighborhood.

King Saul had trouble really listening to God. God clearly told him to destroy everything about the Amalekite. But Saul and the army spared the king and all the good animals.

And God said, “I regret that I have made Saul king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.”  Yet Saul boasted that he carried out the Lord’s instructions.”

But Samuel knew better because he said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”

(From 1 Samuel 15:1-20, NIV)

Are you picking out only the choice words you like to hear?