The art of listening

Someone speaks, and there is:

• the context - the setting, what has come before and is expected after
• the genre - informing, chatting, story-telling, gossiping, warning, commanding
• the attitude toward the listener - threatening, encouraging, caring, concerned
• the degree of interest in or connection with others - or the degree of self-preoccupation
• the tone of voice - melodic, flat, rasping
• the volume - shouted, spoken, whispered
• the use of breath - with a gentle flow, or caught in mid-flow
• the rate of speech - in a rush to get it out, or with all the time in the world
• the quantity - straight and to the point, extensive, or rambling
• the degree of specificity - vague and evasive, or full of detail
• the emotion portrayed - calmness, joy, sadness, despair, emptiness, hope
• the degree of self displayed - very open and personal, distant and kept hidden
• the words or phrases that are emphasised or repeated - and the meaning these repetitions carry
• the tenses used - past, future, present
• the degree of agency - or passivity
• the beliefs, assumptions and worldview - threading the words together
• the underlying messages - veiled, transparent, or hitting one over the head through the meaning between the lines
• the 'ums' and 'ers' - the stutters and the chuckles
• the silences - awkward or peaceful, reflective or hesitant
• the eye contact - engaged or avoided, the glances at meaningful moments
• the facial expression - frowning, worried, a mask, open, smiling, and how these play across the face
• the body language - gesticulations, the lean of the body, the angle of the shoulders, and how these match, or do not match the spoken words
• the variability - or the lack of variability in all the above
• and what is not said.

Oh, and there are also the words themselves that are uttered.

Listen with your eyes

Most people listen with their ears, look with their eyes and speak from their mind.

Rather, listen with your eyes, look with your heart and speak from your soul.

24 hours in a day

Why do we value money more highly than time? Money has no limits - there is always the possibility of raising more! But there is no possibility of making more time; there are precisely 24 hours in each day - no more and no less.

This is not to say that there is too little time. God has given us the time he has given us, and who can say that God is wrong? It is we who rush and bustle, who think that time is short, but it is God who accomplishes his every purpose without any rush.

Perhaps this gives a clue as to the cause of our rush. God has given us exactly enough time to do his will, not too little and not too much. But we spend time doing other things, heedless of his will - things we think are important but are of no real consequence. So we squander his gift of time.

There isn't time to do his will and ours; we have to choose.

Life in the first-person

Wonderful truth:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment - to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession — to the praise of his glory.

Amazing grace:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed me in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For he chose me in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined me to be adopted as his son through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given me in the One he loves.
In him I have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on me with all wisdom and understanding.
And he made known to me the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment— to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
In him I was also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
And I also was included in Christ when I heard the word of truth, the gospel of my salvation. Having believed, I was marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing my inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession — to the praise of his glory.


[The first version is Ephesians 1 v3-14 (NIV © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica)]

Where is the fear and trembling?

The nation of Israel in Old Testament times was convinced it was God's chosen people, and so was often complacent in their obedience of God's commands. They were wrong on two counts - you can never be complacent before a Holy God, and God's heart was for all nations - a thread that runs through the OT and became much clearer in the New Testament.

Are many in the Christian church today just as complacent in assuming that they are God's chosen people and destined for heaven? But the complacency of disobedient Christians who are convinced of their salvation is so dangerous! Where is the fear and trembling before the holy and righteous God?

We have replaced the stiff starched shirts of former 'Sunday best' clothing, with jeans and chat as we casually wander into God's presence at our informal services. We don't need the stiff formality back, but we have thrown out the baby with the bath-water. We have whole-heartedly adopted the notion that God sees us we are anyway, so why bother with any kind of pretence before him. But we miss the lie contained therein - for this is to say: why bother with acknowledging our sinful nature before an awesome and holy God?

We turn the tables and imply that God can take or leave us as we are, whereas God says, "No, I alone am God. I am the potter and you the clay. I am Redeemer and Judge. This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word." (see Isaiah 29 v16 & 66 v2)

Holiness is not much talked or thought about in the church today - perhaps it is too challenging, too troubling? We complacently rely on the simple declaration of faith we may have made many years ago, while having done little about following our Lord ever since. We cannot earn our salvation, but Jesus' gift of salvation, completed on the cross, needs putting into practice each day: "...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling..." (Philippians 2 v12)

We presume upon God's love - without it occurring to us that he may see that our hearts are not humble and contrite before him - and so God may indeed justly leave us to our chosen fate... (see Matt 21 v28-32)

Where is the fear and trembling?

The difficult act of seeking forgiveness

Imagine two people...

The first has no thought of sin, treating it lightly and seeing little need for forgiveness. True, from time to time he behaves in such a way that even he is momentarily disgusted with his own behaviour and so makes excuses, or perhaps admits an to 'error of judgement' or even offers an oblique apology.

The second person knows she needs forgiveness but finds it so hard to accept. She knows that God has made a name for himself as being good at forgiving people. He's had plenty of practice and it appears to come easily to him; in fact he even seems able to forgive really nasty people. But where the problem arises is in her willingness to forgive herself. It's exactly here that she trips over God's apparently poor judgement in matters of forgiveness: she asks for forgiveness and Jesus looks her in the eye and gently says, "I can forgive you", but then she finds she cannot forgive herself! Forgiveness sought, offered, but not accepted...

These two meet at Calvary, and at the foot of the cross both find their answer there, in Jesus' outstretched arms.

The first person sees a brutalised man, bloodied and bruised, dying on a cross. Not the kind of scene that he usually entertains, yet he cannot turn his eyes away. Looking into Jesus' eyes, the gaze is returned and the pain and hurt he has caused by his own drunken actions runs before his eyes, the shocking poverty of his global-neighbour resulting from his own unthinking greed is exposed, and he is appalled at his own inner emptiness, selfishness and sin. He looks again and sees Jesus' outstretched arms, not so much nailed to the cross as holding all his sin in the palm of his hands, and offering forgiveness. He falls on his knees...

The second person knew about the cross, but had not been there in person before. God may be very good at forgiving, she thought, but she found it so very hard! She had prayed for forgiveness, yet still held onto the guilt; she longed to be at peace, but remained deeply troubled; she longed to let go, but still chided herself for what she had done.

But then she looked up at the person on the cross and their eyes met. He seemed to be saying, "Is it really so easy for me to forgive? Do you really think my standards are lower than yours? Yet I do forgive you. Will you now forgive yourself?" And she is drawn to his outstretched arms, inviting her, and knew then that he had done all that was needed there on the cross. She knew she was loved, precious and that her sin had been completely dealt with; that she was forgiven!

They met at Calvary, and at the foot of the cross both found their answer there, in Jesus' outstretched arms.

The problem of authority

One of the wisest pieces of advice I recall receiving as a young man was along the lines of "before you can handle being in authority, you first have to learn to be under authority". This also seems to be a Christian principle, for until we submit to Christ's authority, he will certainly not entrust us with having any small authority under him.

But why is submitting to authority so difficult? Of course, it's only difficult when we disagree with those in authority over us; where we are in agreement, all is straightforward.  

Let's think of an example in order to help us make the issue more real. (I'm not interested here in the issue itself, but rather in how we respond to authority in this example.) The Church of England is painfully divided over the issue of women Bishops.  Whichever side of the issue we are on, if we disagree with the church leadership, will we submit to their authority?  Now this is no longer a theoretical matter - it feels a whole lot harder!

There are several possible ways of responding to this conundrum.

1. If we believe the church leadership is wrong, then we will disobey and do what we see to be right

This clearly places ourselves above the leadership; we do not accept their authority. We retain authority in ourselves and do not submit to their leadership.

2. They are the leaders, our job is to follow

At the other end of the spectrum, this response accepts that, even if we disagree with the leaders, they are nonetheless in authority and shoulder the responsibility for the decision; our job is to submit to their leadership.

Actually there are two ways in which we may take this stance:

• We may do this in an attitude of humility, submitting to the authority of the church leaders in the pattern of Acts 15. It also respects the responsibility they hold, even if we do not personally agree with their decision over these particular matters.
• But we can take this stance as a way to shirk our own responsibility: "it's not my fault; I just do what I'm told". This isn't so much a humble submission to authority, as a denial of our own responsibility in choosing to follow.

So far we have just considered the authority of other men or women.  But in Christian circles we cannot ignore God (actually, we cannot ignore God in any area of life!). Suddenly the issue of authority gets harder. While Christians will probably agree that Jesus has the ultimate authority, we may well disagree over how to understand and interpret his will! Here we are inclined to bring out our most invincible of all weapons: "God says so: it's in the Bible".

3. So long as it doesn't contradict God's word in the Bible, I'll submit to their authority

So we come to a commonly held position amongst Christians: 'So long as the leadership doesn't ask us to disobey God's command, we'll obey; but we won't go against God's command'. At first sight there is a lot to commend this stance; there is even a Biblical precedent (Acts 5 v29).

But this is often not as clear-cut as it might sound! There are some very clear foundational truths in the Christian faith. The ancient creeds were written by the apostles and early church leaders to set these down as inviolable; there can be no submission over matters which undermine the foundations of the Christian faith. But our sample issue of women bishops is not addressed by the creeds, and people on both sides of the argument point to scripture to back their cause. So the difficult issue of authority hits us full force, especially if we disagree with the position of the church leadership.

We need to proceed very humbly in asserting the authority of the Bible. Are we really bowing to the authority of the Bible, or are we merely holding to 'my interpretation of the Bible'? The latter actually puts myself back in charge as the ultimate authority, not the Bible. And we are right back to the difficult authority question...

We are sinful human beings, inevitably seeing things our own way and prone to putting ourselves - rather than Jesus - centre-stage. So we need to look beyond ourselves to other Christians, and together humbly and openly seek God's leading and a right application of Scripture. 

But if we are to look beyond ourselves for a shared Christian understanding of an issue, then why are we not submitting to the view of the church leadership? Are we wriggling and wanting to choose a 'panel of Christian experts who will agree with us'? This is nothing but jury rigging!

The trouble is that we tend to herd together with other like-minded Christians in order to reassure ourselves that we are right after all. So we first form cliques, and then go further to create power blocs in order to promote our particular view. If this is what we are doing, we are certainly not openly and humbly seeking God's will. Moreover, such behaviour is condemned in the Bible. We read Titus 3 v10 and point the finger at the other side but miss God's warning to us. We like verses such as Acts 5 v29 (which is about the limits to submission to worldly authorities, but need to be read in the context Rom 13 v1-7 and 1 Pet 2 v13f) but we skirt around Acts 16 v4 and Heb 13 v17, which are about submission to church authorities. Jesus' own example was ultimately one of choosing to submit to a worldly authority which was patently ungodly!

I sometimes wonder whether God may be less interested in the actual issue, but in how we conduct ourselves in seeking his will over the issue.  If we are 'right' but have spent our time using worldly and underhand means, dressed up with a few handy Bible verses, to assert our personally preferred outcome, what Christian merit is there in that? And what a shameful witness! Jesus' prayer was for unity amongst Christians; there was no prayer that the 'rights' of each individual or faction should be recognised and allowed for!

Perhaps it is time we reminded ourselves of the starting point: Before you can handle being in authority, you first have to learn to be under authority (even when you believe the leaders are wrong).

[In case you wonder about my personal motives in writing this piece, I am one who leans toward disagreeing with the church leadership on this particular issue, but I acknowledge that I am subject to their authority under Christ.]