Some of the most beautiful moments in my life have involved me spewing my guts to a family member, a friend, or at times a complete stranger. When the going gets tough, the burden of the toughness is lessened by the understanding and comfort offered by another. Although I cherish these times of safe vulnerability and validation of my thoughts, these moments are awfully rare. As human beings, I feel that we are inherently terrible listeners; some are better than others, and therefore are relatively "good listeners," but very few of us, if any, place the feelings and concerns of others above their own. We may nod our heads when a someone articulates a thought, or provide our perspective on the situation that a friend finds herself in, but it is not often enough that we truly mull over the ramifications of what another has just uttered. We might ponder what an appropriate response would be to what we have just heard, what reply might make the speaker satisfied, how this relates to our own lives, or how we can fit in an anecdote about our own experiences, or include how we're feeling about a certain something. This is not to say that authentic moments of listening do not occur frequently enough; I'm simply suggesting that there is Someone who is always, and forever, desperate to hear what's on our heart, and not because He savours the opportunity to converse, but purely because he cares deeply about what's on our heart. This is so easily ignored in my life. I get very excited by things; by a new favourite song, a photo I just took of the sky, a movie trailer that made me tear up, a friend I made at work, a new recipe to make cocoa, or the fact that Jack Layton got a haircut last week. Sometimes, people don't care about these things, or that I'm excited by them. I suppose the people who love me are thrilled that I'm trilled, but let's face it: they don't care that Donald Miller wrote the most amazing thing in the world about trees. God however, delights in the fact that I find beauty in HIs creation; He longs for me to come to Him when I experience joy, and bask in those feelings with Him. I find that simply amazing.
Conversely, when I feel down for the most petty of reasons, whether it be how someone hurt my feelings at church, or that I feel Wal-Mart epitomizes the sinful and depressing nature of man, He wants to be the one that I take these struggles to. It's still vital to have a community to talk these things through with, to glean wisdom from the journey of another, and to relate to their circumstances, but I can breathe easily when I recognize that no matter how frivolous, severe, or incomprehensible my thoughts may be, God will devotedly be there to care about what's coursing through my tiny little synapses. He may not, and much of the time will not, agree with me. This is because a great deal of what I think and feel is complete bunk and garbage. Thankfully, though, He's willing, and wanting, to take in all my thoughts. He'll listen without being an opportunist about taking the chance to reprimand or refute me (I"ll save the need for us to listen for and to God for another blog entry...). He does not listen because He wishes for someone to make Him feel needed, but because He has a deep-seated interest in the words themselves. I feel that I'm not articulating this properly, but it's rather late, and I feel like reading and blabbering to God, so I think I'll wrap this up. My challenge is to see the joy in having someone who, no matter the time, the place, the subject, wants me to talk to them. He never tires of hearing my story, of my weariness, or of my pleasure in absurd things. He designed us to come to Him with and for everything, and He misses it when we neglect to take our burden to Him. In truth though, we miss out even more when we fail to share our hearts with the Great Listener.
No comments:
Post a Comment