One of the most remarkable images of God in Scripture is the image of God listening:
“At the sound of my prayer may your ear be turned to me.” (Ps. 31:2 TPT)
We probably take this image for granted. We’re so used to talking while God listens that we don’t even think about it. But in truth, it is astounding. In his book, The Listening Life, Adam McHugh explains by using a ladder. The ladder is a symbol of power, each rung standing for a higher level of power. There is often an inverse relationship between the ladder and listening. The higher you climb the ladder, the less likely you are to listen. This was especially true for kings and leaders. Yet God, who is the highest king, who occupies the loftiest space on the ladder, listens. He turns his ear toward us when we talk.
This same God longs for us to follow his example. We, too, are called to listen. One of the most frequent complaints about us in Scripture is that we refuse to listen:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.” (Acts 7:51)
To not listen is to resist the Holy Spirit. What God longs for are those who listen. Discipleship is, in fact, listening:
He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matt. 17:15)
To be a follower of Jesus is to listen. Henri Nouwen writes this:
“The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, non hearing life to a life of listening.” (Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life)
You can tell that you’re growing if others can tell that you’re listening–to them and to God. One of the greatest gifts you can give another is to let them know they are heard.
Benedict stressed this as well. He pictured humility as a key quality for followers of Christ. Humility, he proposed, is like a ladder, with each rung representing a different manifestation of humility. The ninth step related to listening:
“The ninth step of humility leads us to refrain from unnecessary speech.”
Listening is an act of humility. It’s recognizing that while my voice matters and my words deserve to be spoken, the voice of others matters as well. Listening is an intense act of service and love. And the way this becomes possible, Benedict believed, is by keeping our words few.
Adam McHugh, in The Listening Life, imagines the church as a listening community:
What if, instead of coming to church to be preached to, people came to church to be heard? What if the body of believers was known less as a preaching community and more as a listening community? What if the church was a group of people where the power dynamics of speaking and listening were inverted? Imagine a society of reverse listening, where those who would normally expect to be heard, listen, and those who would normally expect to listen, are heard.
Who needs your open ears today?
