Listen to me!

He who answers before listening - that is his folly and his shame.  Proverbs 18:13

Do you think of yourself as a good listener?

Probably we all do, though I suspect that most of us are far better talkers.

I had an interview with a bank employee once - we needed to discuss a mortgage or something. As I explained our need I could see her eyes glancing down at the papers on her desk. She kept murmuring "Mmm", "Yes, mmm", "I see", but I just knew she wasn't actually listening to me. I wanted her to look at me and give me her full attention.

And what about those times you're talking to someone in a crowded room, and you can see their eyes looking over your shoulder, obviously more interested in what's going on behind you than in what you are saying. Oh, and doctors - I’m sure most of them are very good when it comes to relating to their patients, but occasionally you do hear the complaint "I never felt he really listened to what I was saying". 

(I won’t even start on those people who want you to think they are listening to you while they’re glancing at or tapping on their smart phone or whatever...)

To be fair, I should add that you sometimes hear it said of quite well-known, famous people, “When you’re talking to him/her you really feel you’re the only person in their world at that moment.” That’s a great tribute!

Well, I'm sure I am as guilty in this area as anyone else. So this verse in Proverbs is certainly a prod to me. 

At the very lowest level, to listen carefully is just plain good manners.

But it's also a way of saying "You matter to me. I see you as a real person, a human being, not just a shape filling a bit of space in my life". To feel that someone has really listened to you is massively reassuring and encouraging; it makes you feel much better about yourself.

Why do we often find listening so difficult? Here’s a few possible reasons... 

First, we are just too plain busy - we don't have the time to stop and listen. But, make no mistake, we would happily make time if the other person was someone we valued. 

Second, we are so full of ourselves that the only opinion that matters is mine; we don't mean to ignore that other person, but subconsciously we just aren't interested.

Third, we are afraid that what we hear might challenge some prejudice of ours; we are too lazy to do some serious thinking and perhaps adjust our views accordingly. 

Fourth, we are afraid the other person might make some kind of demand of us. If we listen to what they say we might feel under an obligation to do something, and that would upset our comfortable life. 

Fifth (let's be totally honest), that other person is just so boring. Well, all right, perhaps they don't have much sparkle to their conversation. But can you imagine Jesus stifling a yawn and turning away from some poor soul who rattled on a bit?

Listening to someone, then, is about respecting them, treating them as an equal. 

But it may also be about doing ourselves a favour. Haven’t we all got something to learn? And haven’t we all sometimes come away from a conversation feeling enriched and stimulated by some whole new angle on things? 

And is there anyone who has never said themselves "If only I had listened to what so-and-so said! It might have saved me from disaster"? No wonder Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." As a Sunday school teacher said to me many years ago, "It's no accident that God has given us two ears and only one mouth..."

Not to listen is “a folly and a shame”. Shakespeare went even further, writing about "the disease of not listening". It was said as a joke by the unpleasant Sir John Falstaff, but it was a disease he seems to have been quite proud of: see Henry the Fourth, Part Two, Act One, Scene 2. Truths can indeed be spoken in jest.

By the way, there’s something else the verse suggests, and I mustn’t finish without mentioning it: until you have listened, you are not qualified to speak.
 
Lord God, please forgive me for being so full of my little self that I fail to listen properly to others. Teach me to be a better listener - listening to you, listening to wise people, and, yes, even listening to those I find tiresome. Amen.