Quick to Listen

I have to start with a funny story. We have been visiting my family in northwest Ohio all week. Yesterday we took the kids out to see the farm animals. Jeremiah and Maiesha rode in the tractor with Uncle Adam while we walked back to the house. He was pulling a wagon full of wood that Adam and my Dad had just collected in the woods. Adam pulled out the ax to split a few pieces before transferring them to his truck. Jeremiah says to Maiesha, "Wow, look at that a**. Uncle Adam has a really big a**." Adam overheard the conversation and said, "I think you mean ax. I have a really big ax." Jeremiah replied, "Oh, yeah, that's what I meant." They are so facinated by the interesting things they see out here on the farm.

We had dinner out with Adam, my younger brother by 3 years, and his wife Jessica last night. They will celebrate their one year wedding anniversary on January 8. Adam was married for 7 years to his first wife and he has 2 beautiful daughters, Makayla and Gretchen. Jessica has a son, Adryan, and they have all become one big happy blended family. This is only the third time we have met Jessica so we are still in the getting to know you phase of our relationship. I don't see her as my sister-in-law yet, but more like my brother's new wife. It has been great spending time with them and getting to know her. Our conversation flowed easily last night and we did not lack for topics to talk about. (For any Sienfeld fans - we didn't have any awkward pauses. LOL) It was nice to sit and talk with newlyweds. You can learn from their perspective and recent pre-marital counseling wisedom, and we can share our more seasoned perspective with them.

I think, no I know, God appointed our conversation last night. I have learned over the years to become a better listener. I have taken James 1:19 to heart "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,..." This is really hard for me however, since I am a type A personality and I looove to talk. God has really shown me the value of listening and how I can be a better friend, spouse, mom, etc by just listening. It is not always my job to dish out my opinion and my advice when others are talking to me. It may be that I actually need to HEAR what God is telling me through another person. (What a novel idea. I am also incredible sarcastic which can get me into trouble too.)

There tends to be a great deal of repetition in my life when God is trying to teach me something. So the lesson I took away from last night, aside from just spending time with my brother and his wife, was I must trust God in other people's situations just like I must trust him in my own. I don't have to "fix" other people's problems and work to come up with solutions for them. The best thing I can do is pray for God to direct their path just as I ask him to direct my own. As I pray for them I also pray for myself that I will only share my thoughts and opinions with them as God leads me to do so and otherwise, I will just be a listener so I know how to better pray for them.

Boy, oh boy, is that the hardest thing I ever have to do, but if I trust God for the details in my own life, why in the world would I not trust him for the details in anyone else's life. I have to acknowledge that He is in control and His shoulders are more than big enough to carry all our burdens. I must spend some serious time meditating on Isaiah 55. This life is not about me. It is all about him and I simply get the privilege, by his design, to be one very small part of God's production.
¹ “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
   a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
   and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has endowed you with splendor.”
 ⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
   call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
   and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
 ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
   come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
   without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
   It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
¹² You will go out in joy
   and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
   will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
   will clap their hands.
¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
   and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD’s renown,
   for an everlasting sign,
   that will endure forever.”