“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”

David Ausberger

One of the first gifts Jesus gave to the downtrodden and marginalized people he met was the kindness of hearing them. That is why he asked so many questions. That is why he answered so many questions. That is what made him stand out from the other religious and civic leaders of his day — the important and very busy leaders of his day.

Jesus noticed. 

Jesus stopped and asked. 

Jesus listened to the answer and asked more questions.

Jesus didn’t confuse a person’s status with their significance, but sought to understand that particular individual.

Personally, if I could snap my fingers and be different in one specific way, it would be that I consistently took the time Jesus took to truly hear people, because I believe it is true that being heard is so close to being loved that most people can’t tell the difference.

You could fill Galveston Bay with all the material that has been written on good listening practices and I imagine the majority of it is helpful. But the way of Jesus had and has less to do with technique and more to do with intent.

Do you ever ask yourself, Why am I speaking with this person right now?

• When you are talking with your spouse about what happened at work, or what the kids did today.
• When you are disciplining your child.
• When you are debating ideas in a meeting at the office.
• When you are talking about a struggle in the life of one of your small group members.

Why am I speaking with this person right now?

I can tell you that many times my answer would be one of the following: “Because I have to.” Or, “Because I can fix that for them.” Or, “Because I want to give them a piece of my mind.”

I can also tell you that it is rarely, at least initially, “Because I want to understand why they feel the way they feel. Because I want to understand who they are, and not just what their problem is.”

But Jesus’ consistent practice was to seek out the person. To borrow a phrase from Paul Tripp, Jesus “looked for the person in the middle of the problem.” Jesus knew that a person’s problems can teach us a lot about who they are, so he sought to meet and engage the person who was struggling with the problem.

What is convicting about Jesus’ kind of listening is that it is not really that hard to do. I can do it. It’s just that I often don’t, because, too often, I am much more like the religious and civic leaders of Jesus’ day than I am Jesus — important and busy. So, too often, I don’t engage the person, I just offer my brilliant solution to the problem I haven’t taken the time to understand, because it’s easier to solve problems than to hear people.

Not long ago I heard a phrase that I have been thinking about since. I don’t know who said it, but I think this gets to the heart of the issue.

“Communication depends on the humility to speak in a way that the other person can hear.”

(Source unknown)

I am convicted that my listening problem is a pride problem.

How can I speak in a way the other person can hear if I don’t know anything about them? How can I speak in a way the other person can hear if I don’t take the time to ask, to seek, to reflect, to get clarity, to build trust?

I can’t.

We don’t need humility to give superficial or trite answers. We don’t need humility to give simplistic solutions to complex problems. We don’t need humility to brush people off because we don’t want to take time to get involved. We don’t need humility to hand out Bible verses like they are medicine.

Jesus is the definition of humility. We need to follow his way with others. He already knew everything about the people he met and the problems they had. He didn’t have to ask questions, but he did. And what Jesus did — with centurions, gentile women, Pharisees, crippled people, and even the demon possessed — was teach people one thing: he cared about them.

“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”