The Art Of Listening

His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?”

He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not.  To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.  That is why I use these parables,

For they look, but they don’t really see.
    They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.”  Matthew 13:10-13

 When do you speak?  When do you listen?  These have been questions in my mind for most of my life.  When I was young, I would run into the house library where my mom was on a conference call with her government colleagues.  Before I could say a word, she would raise up her pointer finger.  That meant for me not to talk and wait patiently until she was done.  Sometimes, it would only be for a moment.  Other times, it felt like hours.  Once, I actually fell asleep on the floor waiting for her to be done.  However on other occasions when I was fully alert, I would watch her negotiate and debate issues with her esteemed coworkers.  It was fascinating listening to her.  In the process as I grew older, it also taught me to be a rather good listener.  For example, I learned to pause before speaking whenever it seemed a person and me were both talking at the same time.  It would also make sense that you should let a person talk 75% of the time for greater understanding of what to say.  All of this is probably funny to many who know me because they will tell you I can talk with the best of people.  But it was only because I was always willing to listen first.  The same applies when it comes to God. 

We must always prepare ourselves to listen to what He has in store for us.  In today’s verses, Jesus shared with His disciples the purpose behind His parables.  It forced them to pay attention and hear what He had to say.  It also required greater thinking to thoroughly understand what He wanted them to learn.  It is great to talk with God about our troubles and shower Him with praises.  But every so often, I find myself doing all that and not really listening to what He wants me to do.  Perhaps I read something and might dismiss it or hear His prompting but fail to act.  Listening to God is the only way to acquire wisdom.  Prime example.  Have you ever tried to read a book with someone trying to talk to you?  It is far easier to reflect on what is read in a nice quiet place than amidst calamity about you.  More importantly, how much do you retain when uninterrupted versus interrupted?  The point is if you are busy talking to God or listening to other things, how can you truly hear Him?  And if you cannot hear Him, how can you acquire the wisdom He provides?  How can you pause and reflect to understand what it all means? 

God expects us to listen to Him.  Put another way and as today’s verses point out, we cannot be close to God unless we gain knowledge of who He is.  The importance of this lies in verses from the book of Proverbs, where it says:

Joyful is the person who finds wisdom,
    the one who gains understanding.
For wisdom is more profitable than silver,
    and her wages are better than gold.  Proverbs 3:13-14

Wisdom and understanding are the true currencies in the Kingdom of God.  As such, let us focus our attention spending time on what God is saying to us.  Do you dedicate time to ensure you are listening to Him?  What techniques allow you to best meditate on what God is telling you?  My prayer is that we utilize time and efforts toward hearing God through the art of listening.  Amen.

Heart Smart

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.  Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.  Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”  Matthew 6:19-21

One of my challenges as a Christian is taking God’s word too literally.  I am not here saying that what is written is not true nor that it should not be followed.  What I am saying is that we must always be careful not to take the words of God outside of their context and be prudent to discern its intent.  Here is an example.  This past week, my pastor used this verse:

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Jeremiah 17:9 NLT

Now in reading it, one might appear to believe that the heart is a bad thing, and thus, we must be ‘head smart’ whenever we are following God’s word.  Now I am not questioning the pastor’s use of this verse, and there is truth to being ‘head smart.’  However, we note that Samuel said to Saul about David, “for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” (1 Samuel 13:14b)  So this ‘heart’ thing can be very complicated.  Where does God want us?  Are we following His word above our heart?  I think of things my doctor would say about a healthy diet.  He talks about watching my sugar level and lessening my cholesterol intake.  These tips are as one spaghetti sauce label would say ‘heart smart.’  In that same vain, the answer to these questions lie in our intake of the right things toward having greater wisdom of what God wants from us.

A heart that is filled with love for God will make godly decisions.  The verses in Jeremiah do not necessarily say that the heart is bad.  Instead, it should be viewed as a warning.  It is to ensure that we are not blind to times where our heart is driven to do things that are not what God wants.  Think back to when you were a child, and your parents gave you a punishment for wrongdoing.  At the time, you probably felt emotions ranging from anger toward them to disappointment toward yourself.  Now ask yourself, “How did your parents feel?”  Do you think it brought them joy to discipline you?  Of course not!  Fast forwarding to today, we realize that they did these things out of love.  Not that they wanted to see us sad or take things away.  Their hearts were toward helping us grow to see what was right and good.  In that same way, God’s word will challenge us where at times we will be sad and disappointed when we do not follow His word.  That is a true measure of whether our hearts are in the right place.  David struggled in many ways.  But he recognized when he was wrong, and his heart broke for those things that God’s heart broke for.  That’s why David was a man after God’s heart, and likewise, it is what Jesus was getting at in today’s verses.  If we treasure those things that God treasures most, our hearts will follow His will.  It does not mean we will be perfect.  But like David, we will recognize our failures, and turn to God both in repentance and for forgiveness.

A heart for God is a great thing!  It guides us into following those things that God would ask of us, and it keeps us on that narrow and righteous path that Jesus spoke of (see Matthew 7:13-14).  There will be times where our hearts strings will be pulled.  Sometimes it is God, but other times it is our own wants.  Our goal is not to ignore those feelings.  Instead, we must look to God and His word for greater understanding, then apply it toward serving Him with love and compassion for others.  That’s what He wants for us.  Do you pause when your heart strings are being pulled?  How can you ensure that you heart is filled with God’s intent?  My prayer is that we focus on filling our hearts through His word to ensure that we are indeed ‘Heart Smart.’  Amen.

The Dumb Question

“It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.”  Philippians 1:15-18 NLT

One of the favorite things that I do in discussions (if your name is Loretta, my wife, call it an argument ☺), is what I call the ‘Kent dumb’ question.  These are questions that usually do one of two things.  One is to blatantly point out the obvious, which usually ends the discussion.  The other is when I feel there is something obvious that I am just plain missing.  For example when my daughter claims not to know where the missing cupcake is, the Kent dumb question is, “Mya, why is the cupcake wrapper in your bedroom?”  However, there are times where that so called ‘dumb’ question becomes a great one.  It’s great because often it is the dumb question that reveals something in a plan that no one has thought of.  These are important because it often is the difference between a great plan and a plan that sinks because no one ever asked that question.

It brought me to the very obvious question that we as Christians often wonder.  Am I doing what God asks of me?  When I make a stance on something, is it because it’s what God wants or what I want?  You see, these seem like dumb questions, but they are smart especially when we are not balanced in our approach to them.  Sometimes I allow my heart rule over me too much, and end up not doing what God wants me to do.  Other times, I let my literal sense lead because that’s what God’s law says, but in those cases, I am not as loving of others as God is as loving of me.  As a comedian once said about being a father, “We are dumb, but we are not so dumb.”

It is important that we always check our motives to ensure they are God driven.  God’s law is perfect, and so is His love for us.  But what if one conflicts with the other?  What do you say to the gay person who’s lost his loved one to AIDS?  Now I have not had to deal with this, but this is the dilemma.  How can I show God’s love without accepting or approving of the lifestyle?  You see for one side, it sounds simple.  God does not approve of the homosexual lifestyle, and as such, anything I do to uphold that is a sin.  Period.  That’s easy enough, right?  That’s exactly what happened in the South when they said slavery was acceptable (Note: They used scripture to prove that God approved of it because it wrote it explicitly God’s acceptance of it – see Exodus 20:10, 17 as prime examples).  The fact I bring this up does not mean I condone homosexuality.  It does mean that if we are not approaching it with God’s heart for the person, we are not following Christ for while He did love us for the person we would become, He also loved us right where we were.  I’m merely trying to point out we must truly understand our motives prior to saying one is right or wrong.

God wants all of us.  Mind, heart, and soul.  These will take us to places where we will feel very uncomfortable.  It will make us think when our hearts have led us astray, and soften our heart when our heads are stubborn.  Our goal is to love God and His word, and ask prayerfully for guidance.  So let us not be too simplistic in our approach to situations.  Let us always be willing to make God’s word truly living!  My prayer is that before we jump to the seemingly obvious answer, we pause to check our motives and ask The Dumb Question.’  Amen.