Listening

If you are anything like me, when you listen to a song that you can’t understand the lyrics you simply make them up as you sing along. Eventually you start to believe that those are the actual words. I’ve had some pretty funny moments with my wife Amber when she hears me sing a lyric and she’s like, “that’s not what they say.”

When we get the lyrics to a song wrong it’s no big deal, but if we don’t hear what someone is trying to tell us it can cause big problems. When we don’t listen to what others are saying, just like lyrics, we make up whatever we want to believe about their lives. We fill in the gaps with our own understanding instead of the truth. But when we take the time to listen we start to hear things we never heard before. We begin to hear a need our friend has or a struggle our children may be dealing with. I’ve even been able to hear my wife drop a hint that I am not loving her the way she needs me to. I’ve discovered that when I take the time to listen, I learn more about what I am supposed to do then if someone were to simply tell me what to do.

Listening is the key to understanding and in our crazy busy lives, one of the hardest things to do is slow down and listen. That’s why God tell us to slow down and listen to Him. It helps us to be a listener first before anything else. The bible says over and over again, “Listen to what the Lord says.” It is a call to slow our lives down and listen to what God has to say to us before we act and before we make a mess of things.

Next time you try to sing the lyrics of a song that you don’t know, slow down and listen to what the creator of the song is really saying. And the next time you can’t figure out what to do in life, slow down and listen to what the creator of life has to say to you.