“Those who cannot listen long
and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will
even notice it. Those who think their time is too precious to spend listening
will never really have time for God and others, but only for themselves and for
their own words and plans.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), pages 75 -
76.
“There is also a kind of
listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person
has to say…And it is certain that here, too, in our attitude toward other
Christians we simply see reflected our own relationship to God” (page 76).
Is today my day or is it God’s
day? This is a question I must ask myself when I arise and also ask throughout
the day. Am I in such a hurry to consume the hours of the day that I usurp the
place of God? Do I talk past God and others? Do I half listen to God and
others? Do I presume to know what others have to say? Do I presume to know what
God has to say?
Can there be any greater “task”
than to listen to God, and then to listen to others with the ears of God?
We approach the day the way a
sprinter approaches a race; when we arise it is as if we are out of the
starting blocks and we don’t slow down until we retire to bed. Even then many
of us don’t sleep well, for we lie in bed between the race we’ve just run with
thoughts of the race we will run in the day ahead. Listening requires trusting
rest in God, but we dare not rest or we will miss something and yet in seeking
not to miss anything we can miss everything. Trusting rest in God means that
the day is not mine but God’s; since the day is God’s I am called to
acknowledge His ordering of the day and I am prepared to stop and listen to Him
and to others.
When we order our days too often we order them with no
expectation of God speaking to us and God reordering our day – therefore we may
have every minute scheduled – and when every minute is scheduled we are always
thinking of what we need to do the next minute, and the minute beyond that, and
the minute beyond that – we cannot listen to God and others when we are always
thinking, “I need to do this now, I need to do that next, and that next, and
that next.” People become things to be processed minute by minute, task by
task. And God? What of God? Surely He understands that we have things to do,
surely God is practical about these things.
A sad irony is that busyness is
not fruitfulness, and that since busyness is not conducive to creativity or
quality thinking that busyness retards progress and deep growth in individuals
and groups. Busy people not only pass people by, they pass by opportunities.
Do we presume to know what God
is saying? Do we assume lordship over the day? Does the day belong to us or to
God? How can we “redeem the time” if we are always giving away the time by
insisting on our own agendas, our own importance, and our own willful
insistence that we must move on to the next thing?
How sad that we, who were made
for relationship with God and with each other, throw away opportunities for
relationship countless times during our days and weeks.
This is a matter of lordship –
who is the lord over today? How does the way I live answer that question?
At the end of today, at the
end of every day – let us ask, “Who I have listened to today? How have I
listened to God today?”
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