Christian Living – Page 11 – goodchristianfiction

Let’s Not Lie To Each Other

Posted on April 21, 2013April 21, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Today is one of those days. It comes at the end of a week full of my usual challenges, which have been made to seem even more pathetic in my eyes when I compare them to the actual, horrific tragedies that others have faced this week instead. My existence could be much worse, but knowing that doesn’t make it better. Praying for those who are suffering instead of thinking about myself should improve my disposition, but my prayers seem like so little, and my own lack of control just adds fuel to my depression/anxiety cycle.

So, today I am supremely human. I am battered down by my own failings. This week, I gave the “cut direct” to a work associate who had irritated me at a past meeting, wrote off my employees in my own mind when they (in my opinion) failed once again at what seemed to me the simplest of tasks, watched gossipy television and engaged in my share of saying a few things about others that I would not say to the person herself, and put reading a romance novel before going to sleep in front of taking more awake time for a longer night-time prayer.

It is much easier to write about being a good Christian than it is to actually be one. It is much more appealing to feel oneself compelled by the Spirit to expound on the requirements of the narrow-path walk than to reflect on just how wide your path really is on a regular basis.

Do not misunderstand me. If you have found anything of value in anything I have written, anything that has brought you closer to the truth of God and His love, then realize that I give total credit for that revelation to Him. I know that nothing good comes from me except through God.

But on my human days, when I am supremely reminded of my need for the forgiveness of Christ, even knowing I am forgiven does not keep me from feeling like something that has crawled out from under a rock.

This feeling does not come from God. It is the exact opposite of how He wants us to feel. What He would prefer would be a reaction in which I lean that much harder on Him. Only when I completely surrender myself to the Spirit will I find that walking the narrow path is more practical than I have so far experienced.

At least I am not alone in this struggle to “be good.” In his letter to the Romans, Paul discusses the battle between the good in him, which comes from the Spirit, and the evil in him, which comes from his sinful nature. “I do not understand what I do,” he writes. “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (7:15). In other words, Paul says he doesn’t understand how he keeps doing the things he feels ashamed about doing instead of the things that he knows he should be doing that would make him feel at peace with God.

But, there is hope for all of us. Paul concludes, “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). We will always be fighting our sinful nature, the nature that we die to each morning we arise anew in Christ, but by leaning on God, we have a chance to excel at God’s law of love instead of the devil’s sinful nature.

Christ tells us in Matthew, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (5:19). This truth applies to the mind as well. Where our mind is, what it dwells on throughout the day, that is where our actions will go. If we are dwelling in a place close to God, then our actions should reflect the love of Christ. If we are dwelling on television, or gossip, or work worries, or judging, then our actions will reflect the sinful nature that Paul laments in Romans.

We can’t go through life not thinking about the basic things that we are doing, the tasks we need to finish at work, the goals we have for ourselves or our children. But if we discipline ourselves to look through God’s eyes instead of just our own, then hopefully we will reflect a more Christian walk.

How will I exactly walk my talk this week? What do I need to change to avoid having another Sunday where I’m feeling the failure blues? I am going to begin by trying to watch my inner voice more closely this week. If I start thinking negative thoughts, I am going to stop myself and think about God instead, or say a prayer for the people in Boston or West, or open my Bible to one of a thousand verses I have marked that I should have memorized. If I want to avoid somebody, I am going to make myself smile at them, give them a hug (if that is appropriate) and offer a compliment that I will really mean. I will remember that Jesus had to look at the likes of me and love me. Being passingly nice to someone who otherwise annoys me is honestly the very least I can do.

If you have made it this far in this post, then maybe God is talking to you like He talked to me this week. I will close with a couple of verses from my Bible reading this week that really struck me with the poetic way that they expressed the power of God and what He desires most. (It is, after all, National Poetry Writing Month!)

From the book of Jeremiah:

But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. (10: 12-13)

and

This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight. (9:23-24)

May we delight the Holy One this week by inviting Him into our minds on a moment-by-moment basis, for “neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Christian Living, Poetry

National Poetry Writing Month #20

Posted on April 20, 2013April 20, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

On Knowing God

Just a piece of weathered wood,
once part of a great tree, a tall oak
spreading toward the blue sky.

How did it come to be swept
onto this sandy beach, beaten by waves,
barnacled, the smell of the distance
clinging to its nooks and crannies?

Walking in the dunes, searching
for shells and the evidence of God,
we know the loneliness of logs
taking cover under moss,
all truth of their beings hidden
under layers of salty water
and the memory of rain.

Only on our knees, the ocean’s mist
fanning our faces, do we peel
away our own layers, open the core
of our being to the One whose truth
is everywhere, even in the cast-off bits
of a mighty oak now twirling in front of us
on a distant shore.

Ramona Levacy
April 20, 2013

Christian Living, Faith

His Rewarding Word

Posted on April 13, 2013April 13, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Studying the Bible can be the most frustrating and the most rewarding thing you will ever do. Even if you don’t enjoy studying, per se, taking the time to read the word of God on a regular basis will reap benefits. Not only my own experience, but the Bible itself supports this thesis.

Timothy tells us that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). In other words, the Bible comes from God and contains within it every thing we might need to do the good work that God would have us do.

Christ underscored the importance of the Word when He answered the devil’s temptation with the conclusion that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Paul adds hope to the promises of what we can expect to gain from studying the Bible: “for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).

But, the New Testament is not the only source of proof that the words of God are worth our undivided attention. Joshua promises prosperity and good success if we are careful to do “according to all that is written in it” by “meditat[ing] on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8). The Psalmist proclaims that God’s “word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (119:105), that He is “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (46:1). Isaiah explains that God’s full intention is to have His word used to accomplish His will, using the metaphor of the natural relationship between the seed and the sower: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (55:10-11).

Sometimes, we want to avoid the parts of the Bible that are challenging to us, and lots of times those difficult parts are in the Old Testament (OT). But, as Philip Yancey reminds us, the OT is actually the Bible that Jesus read.

I was vividly reminded of the bonuses available in regular study of the Bible this week as I was making my way through the book of the prophet Jeremiah, who is warning Jerusalem about the coming tide of the Babylonian invasion. In chapter 6, Jeremiah writes, “This is what The Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls….” (16).

Remember how the OT is the Bible Jesus read? Are you struck like I was by the echoes of His words in this verse? Christ tells us the path is narrow to the Kingdom (Matthew 7:13-14), but promises that His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). And one of my favorite treasures from the word is when Christ promises, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).

So, the same promise that God was making for His people in the time of Jeremiah, He continued to offer to all of us, including Gentiles, through the words and actions of Christ.

I’ve left off the saddest part of the verse from Jeremiah, however, for at the end of verse 16, The Lord concludes, “But you said, ‘We will not walk in it‘” [emphasis added]. The Israelites who had refused to walk in the ways of God were facing destruction of their worldly kingdom. For those who refuse to follow the way of Christ . . . .

What we fill our minds with is what will come out of us. The more we know about the things that matter to us, the less likely we will be persuaded to do something that is actually contrary to what we profess to believe.

When I was in Sunday school as a child, we were told the “story” of the woman who saved up her whole life to afford a cruise. Because she had spent all her money on the cruise ticket, she spent the week of the cruise living off of saltines she had brought along, watching others indulge in the abundant food available as her stomach grumbled. Only at the end of the cruise did someone finally explain to her that her food had been included in the ticket!

Let’s not live a life nibbling saltines when our acceptance of Christ’s salvation has opened up to us an entire banquet of wisdom and love and peace–all just waiting to be discovered in His true, sometimes challenging, but always rewarding Word.

Christian Living, Poetry

National Poetry Writing Month #9

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

To Know Him

Silence is a cool breeze tickling
skin warm from the sunlight,
grass blades licking earlobes lush
in paintbrush and dandelion,
a stream bubbling clear
just beyond reach,
the blue sky high above
and white along the edges.

Thoughts scurry, as fears breathe out
with the fall of the chest,
and oxygen warms the belly. Arms
flung sideways, the legs sink
into the clean, crisp earth,
letting go, holding nothing,
open to everything,
even the gentle whisp of a butterfly’s wing.

Knowing God means quiet places,
finding brooks in our mind’s crannies,
away from unholy treasures,
tucked in the deepest dark
where we are most surely and yet never
alone.

Ramona Levacy
April 9, 2013

Christian Living, Poetry

National Poetry Writing Month #7

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

The Supplicant

They are just hands, cracked
as any work-worn skin might be,
the creases running in lines
telling stories of every lost dream
and hard-won victory.

Just looking, we see past the embedded dirt,
the scars stark white against tanned skin
so thick, even softness is just a memory.
These hands know pain, hold hurt
like a solid something, ease misery
with the lightest touch.

Only hands that have raised the crops
for the table or sewn the quilts
warming family beds feel the cold
on winter mornings as something
more than nature’s biting chill.

Clasped in yearning, these hands
have come as close to God
as any believer, stretched in faith
toward that something that binds us
each to the other, the surety of things hoped for,
the evidence of that not seen.

Ramona Levacy
April 7, 2013

Christian Living, Writers, Writing

It All Begins With A Story

Posted on April 6, 2013April 6, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Writers live and die by the story. We see a story in the heated exchange between a mother and father over the cooling remains of a half-eaten dinner at a crowded restaurant, in the brief glimpse of a bicycle laying upside down against a rickety fence, in the weathered face of a one-legged man holding a cardboard sign on a street corner.

Are we writers first, born with the love of story? Or do the stories that we encountered growing up make us into writers?

No matter which chicken or egg answer you choose, stories are a blessing no writer can ignore.

My story blessings are deeply rooted in the histories of sacrifice, hard work, and all-out toughness that surround my family’s background. Like many of us, I don’t have to look past two generations to find people who survived off the land, perfected the art of getting by with just enough, and who never questioned the value of hard work and the happiness achieved via the simple philosophy of loving God first and then one’s fellow man.

There are people outside of my family circle, however, whose stories also touched my creative spirit. One of them died before I was born. A friend of my dad’s, he was sacrificed like so many of that generation on the battlefields of Vietnam. As the story goes, he was safely inside the trench when he ventured out to retrieve a fellow soldier. Unfortunately, he died in the attempt. The closest he ever came to having children, I suppose, is the middle name I bear in honor of his memory.

Another one of my dad’s friends survived his tour of duty only to be scarred by it for the rest of his life, or at least, so it seemed. A “frogman,” that friend had the scary job of following behind the enemy divers and dismantling the bombs they had set in the ocean. It was almost fifteen years after the war before he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, but even before that, he had chosen a different path.

A sort of “old hippie,” he travelled the country playing music, never laying down roots, and yet still having that bon vivant quality that drew others to him. At his funeral recently, Dad was impressed by the stories this buddy’s more recent friends had to tell about the kindnesses extended and lives touched by someone who truly sacrificed all for his country, leaving behind in the end nothing to really call his own.

No matter how diligently we try to express or emulate the stories we experience on paper, beyond personal experience there are no stories as powerful as those woven for us in the pages of the Bible. Open this good book anywhere, and you will encounter love stories, great battles, and conversations with God.

How incredible is the story of Saul called Paul, a Pharisee known for his zealous pursuit of the infidel Christians, a Roman citizen who met God on the road to Damascus and gave up all the acclaim he had earned among his peers to preach the truth of Christ to the Gentiles? Or what about David, who had a heart like God’s, yet still continued to struggle with the same sins that we all must face each day? Because David repented of those sins, he continued to find moments of wonder with the One and Only.

But my favorite stories of the Bible are found in the Psalms, where anonymous, every day people, just like you and I, pour out their praise and fear and even anger with God as they combat the challenges that are inherent to being human. What a glorious God we have, that He will love us through our happiness and our pain! If you ever doubt it, you will find a fellow traveller in the Psalms for whichever place with God you are at. And if you are far from God, I am convinced that the every day people of the Psalms can bring you back again.

From Psalm 91: “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’”

From Psalm 33: “We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you.”

From Psalm 12: “Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts.”

Solomon tells us, “There is nothing new under the sun,” but there are beauty and wonder, tears and pain.

And it all begins with a story.

Christian Living, Christianity

How One Vowel Can Change Your Life

Posted on March 17, 2013March 17, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Within the last couple of weeks, I had the pleasure/challenge of spending some time at one of the happiest places on earth, otherwise known as Disneyland. Along with all the wonderful sights of the magic land, I also got to witness up close and personal the bare truth of the mass of humanity: crying children, frustrated parents, bickering spouses, selfish line jumpers, immodest dressers. Fortunately, I also got to witness the happy side of being human, the smiles, laughter, fun and acts of kindness a happy atmosphere generates that are all part of the reason so many people are willing to open their wallets, literally, and partake in the wonderful world of Disney.

Once I got home and had time to decompress and reflect on my time in the “land,” I was struck by the awesomeness of the love that God has for us, all of us, even in our frustrated or downright mean moments, a love so strong and all-encompassing that He sent Jesus, His Son, God-made-man, to sacrifice Himself so that we might be saved. How short did I fall standing in the long line waiting to ride Space Mountain from loving the people around me as Jesus loved them, even the bored kids swinging on the aisle chains despite being told by park authorities and their parents not to? As I was soaking in the bright colors of the varied architecture and the sightings of costumed characters from various cartoon movies, did I once take time to think about the opportunities before me to love people I would likely never see again?

The answer is, of course I didn’t. I was too busy trying to get the most out of my $300 tickets, too concentrated on not giving into the exhaustion of going and going for 15 hours straight each day in order to get the most out of this opportunity to experience something I don’t normally get to experience.

Today at church, I learned a new way of looking at opportunities like the ones I missed at Disneyland. The elder speaking to us before the offering plate was passed around encouraged us to begin to think about the power of changing just one vowel in our self-talk, making the word “got” to “get.” In other words, I have “got” to be nice to strangers, even when they are rude, becomes I “get” to be nice to strangers because I understand how much God loves even me, a sinner. When I have been forgiven, how can I not also be forgiving? Why wouldn’t I want to grab hold of the opportunities afforded to every Christian to spread the grace that is the only gift we don’t do anything to deserve?

This shift from “got” to GET is profound. GET is something we want to do. GET is special. GET holds promise. GET is going to Disneyland!

In the last few weeks, I have been concentrating more and more on the spiritual practice and practices that bring us closer to God. We are only saved by the grace of God, not because of anything we do, but that in no way means that what Christians do or do not isn’t important. In fact, we can argue from the Bible that professing Christians are expected to bear fruit, to strive to be in the Spirit and not of the flesh. For those Christians who are not striving to do these things, GET is not likely to be in their vocabulary. But it can be with just the shifting of a single vowel.

Paul implores the Galatians, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (6:7-10).

In this season leading to the greatest holiday of all, Easter, the celebration that He lives, that Christ has risen, we GET to reap the benefits of His love. We GET to share that gift of grace with those who may never have heard about it before. We GET to sow the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, faithfulness, goodness, peace, joy, kindness, patience, meekness, self-control. We GET to be Christ to the world.

Change got to GET this week. The life you change may not just be your own.

Christian Living, Christianity

Are You Really In It?

Posted on March 12, 2013March 12, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Last week, I discussed how we are not meant to “know” God through any capability on our part, that is through any ability in relation to what we humans refer to as wisdom. Human wisdom is generally limited to what we can see, hear, touch, or “prove” in one of our scientific experiments.

Paul discusses this truth in his first letter to the Corinthians, a church founded in a city with one of the worst reputations of its era. In his first letter to these challenged believers, Paul also has to address the level of growth these Christians were experiencing, or lack thereof.

The admonitions Paul gives the Corinthians are quite understandable. What an easy trap lay before these believers to fall into: if you lived in the most carnal city of your time, wouldn’t it be hard to release yourself from the carnal nature of everyday life that surrounded you, even once you had accepted Jesus into your heart? Wouldn’t it also be just as tempting to think you were doing just fine because when you looked around you, it wouldn’t take much to do better than just about anybody else you chose to compare yourself to?

Paul’s words to the Corinthians apply to any Christian at any point and time in their Christian walk, for we are all meant to grow in Christ, not just rest on the laurels of belief. Growth takes practice, work, prayer, study, fellowship and faith–all of which can be encroached upon by the demands and temptations of the world in which we live. That is one reason why we are so often encouraged to be in the world but not of the world.

Here, then, is how Paul lays out his arguments against giving in to the flesh for his Corinthian audience. First, he gives the foundation of “proof” for the difference between worldly wisdom and the Spiritual knowing that is our gift when we accept Jesus as our Lord.

“For to us God revealed them [the things eye has not seen nor ear heard of verse 2:9] through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God,” Paul writes (2:10). He goes on to explain that, just as only the spirit of a person can truly know the person, so too the Spirit of God is all-knowing of God. Paul concludes, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God (2:12).

To the non-believer, the person who has not received this Spirit, what Christians like Paul talk about seems like “foolishness” (2:14). However, for those who believe, the Spirit’s wisdom is the basis for potentially wonderful growth, helping the believer live more of the Spirit than of the world.

Alas, the Corinthians, in a world filled with corruption and temptation (sound familiar?), were really struggling not to be of that world. Their spiritual growth was so stunted, in fact, that Paul was writing to them to encourage them to get back on the road to growing spiritually. He explains how he had begun them on “spiritual milk,” knowing that they were not ready for the “solid food” gospel (3:2). And despite the time they had had in the Spirit, the Corinthians were still not ready for solid food: “for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?” (3:3).

Because the Corinthians lived in a reality much like our own, the challenges they faced and the ways that Paul addresses those challenges give modern-day Christians many valuable lessons to learn from studying the two letters Paul wrote to this troubled church. Perhaps this first lesson is one of the most important of all. If we fail to mature to solid food, how can we hope to achieve good fruit for the work of Christ, work to which we were called the moment we accepted the gift of grace?

We only know God through the Spirit that enters us when we step out in faith. But once we take that step of faith, we still have an obligation to ourselves and to God to work to be good shepherds of the present of grace Christ so freely gave to us. Being in the world but not of it is a daily struggle, one we may never master. It is also a skill we will only master with the help of the One who sacrificed all and who deserves the submission of our complete will. When we are in the world but not of the world, surely fruitful things will happen for the heavenly kingdom.

Christian Living, Faith

Can’t Think Yourself Out Of This Box

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

In my life group, we’ve been looking at how the discoveries in science, including the Big Bang Theory, actually support the Biblical account of how the world came to be. Still, scientists want to deny that the Bible could be in any way factual. In fact, some of them stretch their theories beyond the realm of good science just to disprove the possibility that the Bible is right.

But, any arguments about the validity of the Bible in connection with the understandings of the scientific mind miss the point entirely. Believing to the point of knowing is not a matter of mathematical equations or refined physics, but completely in the realm of faith. Faith is not something subject to the scientific method. It truly is beyond all understanding, and it is everything.

Paul explains this truth in his first letter to the Corinthians: “For the word of the cross,” he writes, “is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1:18). We are not going to know about the truth of Christ on the cross because we have scientific or archealogical proof. We have to take on faith the truth of our salvation through Christ’s sacrifice.

“For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God,” Paul continues, “God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21–bold added). We will not know God through our own knowledge or wisdom, but through our belief in a message that will seem foolish to those who want to rely solely on wisdom, on the things they can see, hear or touch.

Faith doesn’t put us in a box, actually, but frees us to live life to the full, just as Christ wanted for us: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith allows us to reach out to others without fear of being ridiculed. If we are ridiculed in the name of Christ, what is that to those who believe? Faith allows us to love unconditionally as we are loved by God. Faith gives us the patience to seek the daily practice that brings us ever closer to God and the fruit of the Spirit, that is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

While faith frees us, it also puts us in a box from which we cannot be shaken: “having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). Like the Nicole Nordemann song that asks, “What if you’re wrong, what if there’s more,” through faith we “jump, just close [our] eyes,” knowing that the “arms that catch [us], catch [us] by surprise” (What If?).

No matter how you process information best (through hearing, seeing, or doing), faith, the great equalizer, brings us all to the same conclusion: there is a God who loved us enough to die for us. What a wonderful gift to open each morning, knowing that our stumbles are forgiven and that we can begin again.

Christian Living, Living

Ear-y Truth

Posted on February 23, 2013February 23, 2013 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

We have two ears and one mouth so that we will listen twice as much as we speak, the saying goes. In this picture, taken at a natural history museum, the reproduced-to-proportion scale model of bat’s ears if they had heads the size of humans, gives us another visual image of the sage advice that listening more than we speak is an important bit of advice.

What does real listening look like? It doesn’t look like being so busy thinking about what you are going to say next that you fail to really hear what the other person is saying. It doesn’t look like raising your voice and talking at the same time as someone else as if that will somehow make yourself be heard. When you get right down to it, real listening also doesn’t look like having to be the person who is “right.”

Have you ever tried a reflexive exercise? In one of these, you sit knee-to-knee with the person with whom you would like to improve your communication skills. Each person gets a set amount of time to speak on a topic without being interrupted by the listener. When the speaker is finished, the listener reflects back what he has just heard the speaker say, without injecting judgments. The speaker verifies if what the listener reflected back is what the speaker said. Then, it becomes the listener’s turn to become the speaker.

Because most of us are not very good at listening, we are also not very good at speaking. We may think that we are saying one thing, but what people hear is something entirely different. Like a domino effect, a conversation that begins innocently enough may snowball into hurt feelings and things left best unsaid, all because we use our mouths much more than we use our ears.

The Bible is replete with admonitions to mind our voices. We will be held accountable for every word we utter, Paul tells us. I’m not looking forward to that “this was your life” flashback. Jesus admonished us to realize that not only what we say, but even what we think affects our ability to accomplish the ultimate goal of love that is the cornerstone of His kingdom.

What we say matters, and being able to listen with loving intent makes it much easier for us to watch what we say. Our words have more power than we often give them credit for. Wouldn’t you rather have your words build others up than strip them down? Yet, how can you know the God-centered words that someone needs to hear if you haven’t attended to what they say with at least twice as much effort from your ears than you used speaking with your single mouth?