THE POWER OF LISTENING

The real power of listening is the power of hearing [read Romans 10:17].  In our flesh nature, we want people to listen to us but we are not good at listening to others.  We want to be heard but are not good at hearing.  We drown out our ability to listen and hear by the avalanche of words we send forth as part of wanting to be heard [read Proverbs 11:14].  There is the old adage that says that there is a reason why God gave us two ears to hear and one mouth to talk so that will hear more and talk less.  I would take one step further. Our mouth will interfere with the words spoken by others with the words spoken by our own mouth [read Proverbs 17:28].  In other words, we not only speak over others when we do that but we speak over own ability to hear [James 1:19].  God’s wisdom and revelation can only be received for understanding when we listen to Him (Scripture, prayer, and fellowship) and when hear Him (absorbing intentionally in our heart and mind what we hear) [read John 8:47 & 10:16].  It takes intentional listening to hear to Him and it takes purposeful listening to receive what you hear [read John 8:47].  To develop this skillset we need to build a habit of listening and hearing.  That means we need to practice listening and hearing in our daily moment by moment living (with people around us and in our situations) as an extension of our intentional listening to God and hearing Him [read Proverbs 5:1-23].  Hearing God has power for and in our life so don’t miss out on this blessing by not listening and/or speaking over Him [Hebrews 4:12 & Matthew 4:4].