The word “listen” has been around me a lot lately. I believe that is God’s way of telling me to listen to Him.
How often do you just sit and listen without any distractions?
Often times we listen with the purpose of giving advice, but we don’t necessarily listen just to hear what the other person has to say. Listening is a very important thing that I personally need to practice doing-especially when it comes to listening to God. He has so much to say, but I always seem to be rushing to the next thing.
Some of you may already know this, but for those of you that don’t, I work at a mental hospital. I work with patients that are 11-17 years old that are suffering from suicidal thoughts/attempts, self harm, anxiety, depression, out of control behavior, and substance abuse. The other day, a patient was sharing her story with me. She has gone through an awful lot for only being 13 years old. She told me her mother didn’t want to see her anymore or to have anything to do with her and so she just didn’t want to live anymore. I asked her if she had an outside therapist to talk to, and she said yes but all they do is talk and they don’t listen to me. She said “I just want someone to listen to me.” This sentence hit me. My job requires listening, but lately it’s been difficult to listen due to changes in staff and the workload. It seems I have less time to devote to listen to the patients individual stories. They each have so much pain from their past experiences, and all most of them need is for someone to sit with them and let them do the talking. When these patients have someone to talk to about their problems it often helps them release some of the pain they have been holding in. I believe that the reason some of the patients have the issues they do because no one chooses to listen to them, so they resort to other ways to relieve the pain they are feeling.
Listening is a choice. It shouldn’t be a chore. Yes, it takes time and concentration to listen, but how often has someone taken the time to listen to you, to hear what your option is or what you are going through? The Lord listens to us ALL the time, and he does it simply because he cares for us so deeply, and he enjoys when we share things with him. We are so important to him and I’m sure he really does love when we tell him things that are going on in our lives even though he already knows about them.
The word listen appears in the bible 73 times. Us humans have a difficult time when it comes to listening because we become so distracted by our cell phones or our thoughts. It all started in Genesis with our friends Adam and Eve. God told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They heard him say that but they chose to listen to the serpent instead. Listening is more than just hearing the words come out of someone’s mouth, but it can be an action as well. The Lord is always telling us something, but we must unclog our ears, declutter our minds, open our eyes, and silence your cell phone for just a smidge of time. He has so much to say to us but we often don’t hear him due to being so distracted by the world around us.
I challenge you to intentionally listen to someone whether it be God or a stranger -everyone deserves to be heard.
