Friday, July 26, 2019

7/26/2019 Listening For Redemption


Know this, my beloved kin: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. ―James 1:19-20

I have been wondering why you, Lord gave this old guy the motivation and the endurance to take on a massive house renovation project during the summer months. I know there is a financial issue, that’s the simple one―much less costly to do it myself. And I am grateful I have the necessary abilities and resources. I have you, some very dedicated friends and skills passed down over the years to me by my father and other craftsmen to thank for that. Still, there has been something else―that persistent whispering in the back of my mind―Your Spirit. I know well its cadence and the difference of His character as compared to the other mumblings in my psyche―encouraging me forward on this project. What is it that makes this so pressing in the “now”?
I understand that the answer is always more complex with You than just one purpose. Your shaping in my life, Your causing of circumstances, always points to a greater design for me and for Your creation-community to which I am interwoven. I know that as we prepare for our trip next May back to Israel, You have been compelling me to get “my house” in order. I had been thinking this meant financial order and also organizing the many coordinated workings of such a trip. But could it also mean I need some additional internal Spiritual house-ordering? Of course, but what does that really mean? What new seed have You been trying so diligently to plant into my soil?

As I sweat and toil, I’m reminded of how You seem to best reach me; while I am fully engaged in some challenging exertion, whether physical or mental. It is in those moments of high focus that you till and prepare me for the fruit you desire to be borne out. And so it is proven out once more.

I have been thinking a lot about the post-modern era in which I now exist―a place where opinion does not often relate to a greater proven truth, especially Your greater Truth. Now our philosophies and ideologies have become the highborn product of the individual’s self-centered relativism. We appear only concerned with the cause of the moment―social, environmental or political―rather than the impact of our actions upon others. My cause over other’s cause, over Your cause, Lord? What has happened to us and what is the alternative?
Over the years I have learned a lot about listening. Not only how difficult true listening is, but also how challenging it is not to “agendize” what I learn in the listening process. I have the tendency to cleverly re-define the humble sharing of someone else’s shared story by twisting their words to fit my narrative. We all do it. A friend who insists that he only desires to hear another’s origins without biased, let drop his conviction that he believes there is no hell. Fine, I heard his statement without comment…yet, he interjected, “who in the world would believe in such a place?”

And by his statement, innocent or otherwise, he had disparaged a critical component of my origin-story, even though he had listened many times to my personal history―my journey in discovery of a need for a Redeemer to save me from being consumed by the trappings of a fallen world.

Like my friend, I believe I’ve gotten better at listening and observing, but still I struggle with outcome based listening rather than truly meeting people where they are, learning to accurately feed-back the foundational substance of a person’s biography, sharing my personal experience only when asked to and only when the other participant is also prepared to listen in like manner―sincerely wanting to learn of the other’s shaping rather that shape the other’s learning.

Naïve, Lord? Can I possibly meet someone where they are, not where I want them to be; listen without forming an opinion or response while still in the act of listening? Sure, I understand. Such an exercise is the beginning of relationship. Our stories do not stop until our last breath, nor are the stories only individual. The moment two encounter one another, You are already creating a new path for them to walk together. But I am prone to dismiss the first part of the encounter, thinking the second part is more important. I keep forgetting that the second part, a growing trust relationship, cannot happen without first, the willingness to be vulnerable with another human being.
And that begs the real question regarding how you are preparing me for redemption? Can it be that You desire I, and my fellow human beings to learn first the origins of redemption in Your story? If I fail to listen to how You came to create us for love, only to have us regularly reject that love; if I refuse to hear Your calling for me to love others as You love us; if I cannot accept the flaw of my own rebellion―counting my will as supreme over Yours; than where is the hope for a better world condition? Certainly not in the continued popular culture initiatives we humans contrive.

What proof of the collapse of listening fundamentals do I have? Lord the headlines of the world tell it all.
I look at my own house redemption project, differently now. As I struggle to refurbish, cleanup and create a better foundation for the homestead with which You have blessed me, I now am also trying to view each board, screw, and joint as a metaphorical example of how my relationships with You and Your children also demand the same care and attention. Hmm, perhaps I’m being prepared for some new housebuilding, in the form of listening to Your story, through Your childrens’ stories here in my community as well as in the land of Your chosen people.]

Help me Lord to be practiced to the task, whatever that might be. Let me respond by quieting my own noisy opinionated will and cause me to hear Your will correctly, by reflecting Your redemptive desire for relationship with others.

Shema

Mark C.




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