Listen

So I hear a super-duper important movie came out yesterday in the States…

We saw it last week 😀

There are lots of perks to living abroad (especially living in the capital city of another country) but I have to say, getting to see Captain America: Civil War a week before anyone at home was pretty cool.

Side note: I don’t think I reveal anything spoiler-y in this post, but if you’re planning on seeing the movie and haven’t yet, I wanted to warn you that I’m mentioning vague plot points, just in case. (Also, what are you waiting for?)

The movie, combined with the fact that I’m reading Jeremiah right now, has got me thinking more about communication, specifically miscommunication.

Basically the entire book of Jeremiah is one long train of God saying over and over and over again, “Quit doing all of this bad stuff or I’m going to bring in the Babylonians to conquer you!” And then people of Judah refusing to listen.

It amazes me that a people who had seen and experienced so many miracles in their history could forget so easily just how powerful God is.

But at the same time, I get it.

Because that has happened all through human history, and as advanced as we are, we let it happen today too.

This installment of Captain America has a ton of people not listening. So much of the fighting would have been prevented if they took a timeout to listen to each other. But we humans, we don’t do that so well. We’re much more likely to get wrapped up in our own problems, our own ideas, our own lives, that we don’t stop to understand what’s going on in the lives of the people around us.

Whether it’s real people from the Old Testament or superheroes in a fantastic movie, it is all too easy to find narratives of people who refuse to listen.

So I want to encourage you today to make some time for listening.

When you pray, listen.

When you hang out with family (Happy Mother’s Day!), listen.

When you interact with coworkers, listen.

The relationships we have with each other – and with God – are only as strong as the effort we put into them. We know that a big part of that is communication, but it’s really easy to get caught up in telling our stories/jokes/worries and then forget to listen. But just a little bit of listening can go a long way.