Listen Up!
“Dad! Dad!! DAD!!”
Four small fingers land on my cheek; they tap emphatically.
“Hey! Look at me, Dad. I’m trying to talk to you!”
My four year old daughter is insistent – as insistent as her soul’s need to grow, to become, to be discovered. To exist in isolation is not possible; it is subtle torment. My daughter is banging on the door of life; “Let me in, let me in.”
We yearn for life, growth and eternal becoming; we were created for endless communion with God. That’s a hard marker to beat. No wonder addictions become insatiable- we’re trying to fill an internal abyss with frantic crumb offerings.
Words are powerful, Godly words even more so. They fill the soul as the creative words of God filled the chaos in Genesis with colour and light.
But, words need a place to land; they themselves need a place to give birth and become. They themselves cannot exist in a vacuum.
We can’t grow without being known. Outside of relationship we cannot know God, ourselves, or others. We are birthed from community – the Trinity – and back into community.
When we listen, we offer a place for the speaker’s words to land; a place for the speaker to become – a spiritual womb. In this way, we share each other’s joys, burdens, and confessions. We participate in revealing the truth of who we are, and the truth of our community. The listening ear provides the light of exposure; sometimes that’s hard, sometimes it’s wonderful.
Listening is sacred, it provides the fertile ground onto which testimony and change can adhere and grow. It’s therefore unsurprising that solitude, that fearful place where we dedicate our attention to God alone, is so vital. Only in Him can we truly become. In His presence our spirits feed deeply on His words, in scripture or simply in silence.
Mike – Team Member