You know the saying that people have one mouth but two ears because we should listen twice as much as we talk. That’s certainly good advice to me. I’m too quick to tell people how things are supposed to be because I KNOW.

I once learned the story of Frank Laubach, a missionary to the Moro people in the Philippines. He had trouble reaching them because most were Moslems.  Once while praying God seemed to speak to him saying, “My child, you have failed because you do not really love the Moro people. You feel superior.” The next day Laubach went to the local Moslem teacher and asked to be taught about Islam. His willingness to listen opened the people to him. Laubach invented the Each One Teach One system of teaching reading that has brought literacy to millions of people.

Great things can happen when we shut up long enough to hear what other people have to say. Father William Shannon, a noted Christian teacher wrote: “Dialogue has as its goal a sharing of the truth. It is not just that I want to share my truth with another. It is also that I want to share the truth the other has that I do not have.”*

A counseling technique I learned was to listen to a person and then repeat to them what you thought you heard them say. The other person is pleased because you’re actually listening to them and you gain real understanding of the other. Would that ever help people get along better.

Read Mark 9:7 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

*Silence on Fire, p. 64