Attentiveness

“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” (James 1:19).

“The great talker is rarely a great listener, and never is the ear more firmly closed than when anger takes over.” (borrowed quote from www.bible.org)

Many times in past months I have been challenged in the area of my listening. I have been challenged to go beyond myself and consider others. It has been sobering to consider just how willing I am to put other people’s agendas ahead of my own. Just this morning, I was challenged anew: How willing am I really to remain silent while another person fully states their feelings, arguments, struggles and problems? I admit I frequently jump the gun in conversations either with my tongue or with my thoughts. I want to interject, resolve, defend or cut off, but those actions quite possibly aren’t the most prudent.

I cannot fully attend to a person in the moment if my thoughts are already advancing to what my response should be. There are definitely times when I need the reminder to cool my jets and keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to be half-hearted, lazy, or overly judgmental in my attentiveness. I need patience so that things might be seen through to their rightful conclusions. I need to realize that not everybody needs to think like me in order to be right. If I find myself jumping to conclusions or making false assumptions, I may end up dead wrong. Few people will be willing to follow a leader who makes illogical choices based upon first impressions or educated guesses. I need to follow-through and make sure I have my facts straight if I am to serve people well.

I need to work on and toward affording people the dignity of being undistracted when it comes to building or nurturing my relationships with them. There’s still so much of myself that impedes upon my relationships with others. There’s still a great deal of myself I bring into my relationship with Him.

Things are not all good in terms of my attention span. Things still need work in terms of my obedience too.

Cultivation of the wise and listening life takes time and I need it. It is to my advantage if one step forward and two steps back is still progress.