Pay Attention

James 1:¹⁹ “Understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to hear [be a careful, thoughtful listener], slow to speak [a speaker of carefully chosen words and], slow to anger [patient, reflective, forgiving]” (AMP)

In my walk with God, I have gone through seasons of dryness, seasons where it seems like I am searching for Jesus like Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:41-50). One of my fastest ways of reconnecting is calling up a friend that I know loves Jesus and talking about scriptures. And the fire gets rekindled, or I find a fellowship and sit in. It is as if the corporate fire has a way of kindling my personal fire. Matthew 18:²⁰ “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.” In Luke 2:41-50, Jesus teaches us the power of presence, and He shows us a major key to presence and that is attention.

You are not more present than you are attentive. When you want to increase your presence with God, pay attention. How do you pay attention? By listening and asking questions. What is God saying? In my experience, sometimes when I have a question, God asks me a question. And this is truly amazing because when God asks me a question, I find the answer to my own question. Listening and asking questions connect you to the people in your life. You cannot just want to talk and talk but you are not listening. For some people, your spouse has been saying the same things repeatedly for the past five years, but you are not listening.

What does it take to listen? Most times, when people say they listen, what listening means to them is, ‘finish talking so that I can talk’. That is listening. That is when you hear people say things like, ‘when you were speaking, did I talk?’ That is someone who is not listening. In my experience with counselling couples, this happens a lot. One person is speaking and the other person is just waiting for him or her to finish. Then they ask, ‘Are you done? Pastor, you see I did not say anything when he was speaking.’ That is not listening. The man is done talking, so I ask his wife if she heard what her husband just said. And she goes, ‘I heard but…’, she is not listening. Guess what? Listening is the language of love, listening validates people, listening says you are valuable. You must listen, just listen. You cannot love if you do not listen.

Listening is not keeping quiet and letting the other person speak. No. Listening is paying attention to what they have to say and asking questions to make sure you understand what they are saying. You cannot love if you do not listen. Are you listening to your boss, are you listening? Your boss is speaking, but you are not listening, then you are about to get fired. Have you noticed that it is the person that listens that gets promoted? It is not about office politics or favouritism. Go and listen! If you are the boss, who will you promote – the person who listens or the person who does not listen? When you listen, it shows that the person is valuable to you.

Prayer: Father, please help me to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry, in Jesus Name. Amen!