One of the things that was sort of a wake up call for me when I got married were the number of times that I thought I was really listening to my wife, but she would retort with “you aren’t listening to me.”
Inside, my pride was telling me that she didn’t know what she was talking about. I mean, come on. I was a pastor and listened to people for a living (pastors can sometimes been notoriously bad listeners). And I was training to become a therapist…who listens more than a therapist? And after all, were all those people wrong who would tell me I was a great listener? That’s what I was thinking inside my head. And of course those thoughts stayed inside my head, as should many thoughts that came racing across my brain during arguments with my wife.
But as time goes on I am beginning to see that what we often see as listening is not really listening at all. We assume because we hear, that therefore we have truly listened. But hearing and listening are not the same thing as most of you can attest to.
The longer I’m married, the more people I counsel, and the more material I read, I am convicted that we are a society that is not very good at listening to one another. In fact, we rarely take time to listen to ourselves, instead choosing to fill up the space with noise to keep us from having to truly reflect on what is going on inside of us. This inability to listen to ourselves doesn’t stop with us, but carries over into our most important relationships. Continue Reading…
