5 Ways to Listen Up

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.   James 1:19

 

It was silly to be so upset about it.

I left a partially eaten snack sitting on a table and went to finish a little job that hadn’t been done. Someone yelled to ask if it was mine. I answered yes and kept moving.

When I came back, it was gone. I was annoyed.  I’m still not sure if I was angry or just feeling deprived of my treat. Even in the moment, I knew it was silly to have such a strong reaction and brushed off my husband’s offer to replace it.

The day before we had been discussing how important it is to listen to people when they speak, especially if you have asked a question.  (Conversations go better when more than one person is involved!)  My own (over) reaction to losing my little snack drives home the point for me that lots of pain is caused by failure to listen or hear what someone has said or asked or implied — especially when the topic is important to the speaker.

Isn’t it interesting that the Bible uses the word “listen” 188 times but it uses the word “hear” 441 times? It is one thing to listen, an entirely other thing to hear what has been said. We can listen for the sound of another person’s voice to stop so we know it is our turn to speak. That would not necessarily mean we have heard what they said.

James 1:19 (at the top) seems to be saying that we should be more willing to listen, as in “hearing,” than to speak.

So many times we are not listening but are thinking about what we will say next. This leaves the second person in the conversation feeling like what she has to say has no value; her opinion or question or problem doesn’t count. Is that what we’re trying to communicate?

Here are 5 suggestions to let someone know that you want to hear what she’s saying.

1. Make eye contact. When we look at someone we tell her we are fully engaged.
2. Don’t look intently at something besides the person in the conversation. If our eyes are on the TV, computer monitor, phone, iPad, or on some beautiful scenery when someone else is talking, our message is clearly that the other thing is more important than she is.
3. Match facial expressions with the content of the conversation. If she is telling us some serious story and we are laughing, she knows we are not thinking about her . If we are frowning and she is trying to be humorous, it says we’re not listening at all.
4. Read her body language. Is she fidgety, nervously playing with something in her hands? Is she happy, barely able to stay in her chair in her excitement? Is she angry, arms crossed, eyes averted? Is she hurt, downcast face and eyes and no words? How we respond, our proximity to her and our own body language, can say as much as our words.
5. Think and choose words wisely. Words can build up and words can tear down. When we do not listen intently before responding we are unlikely to respond well. Listen to what she is saying, not just the words she’s using. The hardest thing may be putting off what we want to say to respond to the concern she has expressed.

My own incident was a minor irritation that didn’t last.  We should keep in mind, however, that not hearing what someone is saying easily leads to insensitive or inappropriate responses that may cause great pain.

Listen up!