Listening

Today’s British society bathes in entertainment. If it’s not exciting and entertaining, today’s young people especially, switch off (and I don’t just mean the television).
But those of us who are older know that that’s not what life is about.

Listening to someone talking, even if they are the words of life itself, is considered dull, and people find it difficult.
Marriage or a relationship has to be constantly exciting and changing. No wonder so many couples break up, …with the subsequent devastation that causes to the children. No wonder we’re so dysfunctional as a society.
What about faithfulness, commitment, COMMUNICATION, trust, honesty, intimacy, forgiveness ?
These are the things which make a healthy marriage or friendship.

With the busyness of life we can forget how to really, actively listen to another human being. …..And we struggle to listen to God.
So many times our asking prayers involve guidance, because we find it hard to know God’s will and leading.

If your head is buzzing, if you’re thinking about loads of things, or are worrying, ……or are anxious emotionally, …..you will not be able to hear properly what someone is saying to you. You might catch odd bits, or get the wrong end of the stick, but you won’t hear their heart.
To hear another, you have to active concentrate and focus on them.
To hear another person, or God, it is vital to get rid of any baggage, and our own agendas that might be getting in the way.
To clear our minds of thoughts, and our hearts of personal emotions, so that we can fully focus on the person speaking.

Read Philippians 4:4-7.

If you still feel anxious after praying, then you’re not letting go and trusting God with whatever it is, …..you’re hanging on to it.
Do you believe God’s in control or not ?
Do you believe God is all powerful or not ?
Do you believe that God really loves you or not ?
If you don’t, then your view of God is faulty and you probably need to spend more time in Scripture getting to know what God is really like, and explore where this faulty view of God comes from – our parents, or our reaction to tragedy are most common.
If you do believe God is in control, all powerful, and loves you, …then let go.
Then you will know God’s peace….as a protection over your heart and mind, emotional life and thought life – both are very important to be at peace in.

So let’s do it now, either out loud or in quiet, bring anything troubling you to the Lord. Obviously, any sin you’re aware of – jealousy, lust, pride, unforgiveness, bitterness, gossip, greed, and so on.
Confess it and know His forgiveness and cleansing. A cleaning out inside of junk and muck.
Give every sin, every thought, and every emotion over to Him, one by one, until non are left, ….accept an awareness of God……..

………Now we’re going to meditate on God’s word, and some of what the psalms says about being still :

Get people to close their eyes, then Read Psalms 46 ; 37:1-13 ; 107:23-32 ; 131.

The context of some of those verses may have surprised you….. Stillness in some cases can be described as ‘a totally focussed awe’.
‘Wow, God is incredible’.

1 Peter 4:7 says, ‘The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply….’

Is prayer a one way conversation ?
So to pray, to have this two way communication with God, according to this verse, we need to be what ?
- Clear minded and self controlled.
And to love others deeply obviously means listening to what’s on their hearts. To do that, we need to be clear minded – have nothing on our minds, in the way……and to be self controlled…to keep self under control, again not in the way, not taking pre-eminence.
It is the other we are focussing on. To consciously give your full attention to another person, to listen to what they’re saying - not just the words, but the tone, body language, and what they’re not saying too.

Being clear minded is not just a Buddhist or Hindu thing.
It is a basic requirement of any meditation, because it’s the way we are. We have finite brains and emotional capacity that can only deal with so much at any one time. If you want to give yourself fully to listen to another person, or as a Christian to listen to God, it is obvious that you need to clear other thoughts and feelings out of the way first. Clearing some memory, some RAM for those liking computer analogies.

Practically in life, most of us find ways to deal with large amounts of information and things calling for our attention – calendars, diaries, lists, pda’s, mobiles, secretaries, etc. We invent systems.
I personally use a diary and ‘to do’ list, so all I have to remember is to look at them, rather than try to hold a lot of things in my head.

That’s the practical stuff of life. But the harder and more important stuff to deal with is the emotional – anxiety, anger, frustration, stress, doubt, grief, and so on. You can alleviate some of the symptoms through controlled breathing, etc, but basically, we need to bring these feelings to God, and let go of them.
Not to deny those emotions, but to trust Him with it, with whatever has caused those feelings in the first place.
The bigger our view of God’s power and love, the more likely we are to do it, …..but the bottom line is that we need to give ourselves over to God, to recognise that we are His, that when Jesus suffered and died He bought us for Himself.
To get worked up over things in our life, angry and bitter because someone has offended us for example, is self focussed, is not of faith and trust in God, is not of love, and therefore is sin.
So what do we do with sin ?
- We confess it and repent.
What does God then do with that sin ?
- He forgives it and takes it away, and cleanses us from it.
The before and after contrast, is between scarlet and brilliant white.

To love God with all that you are, body, mind, soul, heart, spirit, the lot. To love others as yourself. This is fundamental.
This total commitment to loving God and others is so important.
To listening, to relationships, to becoming what God wants us to be.

Read Romans 12:1-2.

Want to know God’s voice, to hear Him clearly ? Then do what Paul says here. Conversely, if we don’t, we will always struggle to hear God speaking to us.
This passage in Romans then goes on to talk about serving one another in the body and using the gifts God has given us to do this.
It starts with giving ourselves over to God, acknowledging Him as Lord, not just with our lips, but with our whole being.

If you want to hang on to self, to sin,….or hold back because of doubt or fear, ……do you really think you will experience God in a real and powerful way ?
Are you going to be hearing His voice clearly ?

Put yourself on the sacrificial altar, on the cross where we have been crucified with Christ. Die to self and live for God.

Read Luke 9:18-26.

Jesus lays it on the line for us. The choice is yours and mine.
Live for yourself and die, or die to yourself and live.

Living in vibrant, loving, intimate relationship with God and His people. Hearing one another and hearing God.

If you action what I have talked about today (that’s assuming that you’ve been listening), it will be a big step towards living and walking in the Spirit.
Living in the Spirit, can be summed up as Hearing God, Trusting God, loving God, and Obeying God.
But to hear Him we must get rid of anything in the way, to prepare the way for the Lord, and that includes in our minds, and in our hearts or emotions. To hear Him clearly, we need to be in a right relationship with Him, with Jesus as Lord, surrendered completely
to Him. Then we stand a chance of living in the Spirit, the most wonderful way there is to live.