Inside Out Living

“My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” (James 1:19)

A while back, I watched a TV program about how children learn the grammatical structures of language by listening to the people speaking around them. This got me thinking because, before we can ever learn to speak, we can already listen. In fact, we can listen and distinguish voices while still in the womb.

So, if listening is such a natural and easy thing to do, except for the hearing impaired, why is it that once we start speaking we listen so poorly? Why else would James feel led to write the verse above if in actuality we didn’t practice the opposite? So many times I find myself rushing to judgments or giving my input or trying to offer solutions when all I really need to do is just listen.

Is it out of pure laziness that we don’t listen, or is it a deeper spiritual reason that we don’t listen, like pride or rebelliousness? The reasons for not listening may be as many as the times that we fail to do so.