An Ounce of Prevention

According to my husband, I am a big sigher.  Apparently I sigh a lot and when I do, I sigh with meaning.  Happy contented sighs.  Or, the “loaded sigh”-they apparently show signs of frustration, discontent and general disapproval.  I am capable of communicating quite a bit of information in the simple act of sighing.  After 12 years of marriage my husband has become an expert sigh reader!

I thought about this as I read Jeremiah 25:3-4.  He starts off by saying “For twenty-three years…”  I wonder if he started off with a loaded sigh before the words ever left his mouth.?  Also, in my head I hear him saying these words in the old Vermonter accent (which is very different from Boston by the way).  It gives his words a sense of wry irony, glum humor and utter disgust that he’s having to tell them the same thing yet AGAIN!  He goes on:

“the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.  And though the Lord persistently sent you all his servants the prophets, you have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear…”

It’s a serious message that he’s giving them-turn from your ways so the Lord doesn’t have to punish you.  I can see in my minds eye the members of the royal court, rolling their eyes thinking “here we go again!  The crackpot is back!”  On the other side I can picture Jeremiah thinking “here we go again!  How many times do I have to tell you the same thing???”  I’m thinking that Jeremiah and the other Prophets did a lot of sighing over the years!

Same thing happens today, doesn’t it?  Your children are proposing to do something that you know is going to end in disaster and you try to reason with them and they look at you as if you have suddenly grown three heads!  “Don’t worry” they say “it’s all under control!”  Then, they are stunned when things don’t work out and you, as the parent, are stunned as to why they couldn’t see the obvious!  And you have to hold back the urge to say “I told you so!”  (In all honesty, sometimes we parents don’t hold back on the “I told you so” response but we do try to be diplomatic.)  Our hope is that they learned a valuable lesson from the experience, but there is frustration with the fact that they had to learn the lesson the hard way!

Life is like that.  Sometimes we listen to wise counsel and avert disaster.  Other times, we plunge head long into doing the same things expecting a different result and all we end up with is disaster and frustration on the other end.  The lesson from Jeremiah should be a reminder to all of us!  Whether it is family or friends or church, sometimes we need to stop and truly listen to what another person is saying.  It is too easy to dismiss the words of others, particularly if they do not line up with the scenario that we have hatched in our head!  Granted, there are individuals in the world who criticize anything and everything-they are usually pretty easy to spot.  They are the ones who, on a sunny day, will tell you that it’s only temporary cause clouds will soon be on the way.  Their message is neither helpful nor hopeful, so take what they have to say with a grain of salt.  The people you need to heed are the folks who have your best interest at heart.  They are not out to hurt you and you need to recognize that fact!  God doesn’t always send “whoa wait” messages in flashy symbols, generally he sends the message through people.  If the person is someone who truly cares about you and only wants the best for you then it is important to pause and listen to what they have to say.  Then take it to the Lord and ask for discernment.  Are their words spoken because they are afraid that you will get hurt?  Or, are the words spoken because they are trying to help you avert disaster?  There are points in life when a critic can be your very best friend if you listen carefully and wisely to their words.

The lesson for today is listen now so you don’t have to listen to someone say “I told you so” later on!  Or as the old sage saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Can You Hear Me Now?

Artwork by Izzie, Used with Permission

Remember the cell phone commercial from a few years ago, where the guy is out in the middle of nowhere saying “can you hear me now?”  I was reminded of that little phrase as I read Job 23 this morning.  No, that isn’t exactly what Job said in that chapter but, in essence, it is the question that he was asking.  Job, in conversing with his friends essentially says that if he could just find God then he could argue his case before him.  He says this in verse 6 in the Wesley Study Bible:

“Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?  No, but he would give heed to me.”

In other words, Job is saying “at least he would hear me!”  How incredibly human is that desire?  Isn’t this something that everyone longs for at some point in time?  Although, you may not agree with me, at the very least, let me know that you hear what I am saying to you!  Each of us longs for someone else to listen to what we have to say!

As a mother, I can remember times, when my children were little, and they would come up to me with a picture, or they might tug on my arm wanting me to come see something that they had built.  Needless to say, sometimes their need to be acknowledged and my schedule didn’t always match!  Sometimes I could stop what I was doing to go look at their creation or listen to their story.  Other times, I would have to say “just a minute” and they would have to wait.  But I always tried to acknowledge their effort, or their point of view.  When they got older, the topics changed and there were a lot of family discussions around the dinner table.  I might not always agree with their position but I took the time to listen and acknowledge their point of view.  That longing to be heard is hard wired into each of us, from a young age and that longing doesn’t change no matter how old we grow!  Each and every one of us has a desire to be heard!

So why is it so hard to be heard?  Because in order to be heard, someone has to take the time to listen.  And listening seems to be in short supply.  It’s like we are all talking past each other rather than talking with each other.  Sometimes we have to stop talking and instead start listening!  That doesn’t mean that you will always be in agreement on a topic, but at least you will have made the effort to hear the other persons point of view.

Now I could use the United States Congress as a prime example of “talking but not listening” but I have another example that I would like to bring up-General Conference.  For those of you who are not Methodist, let me briefly explain what General Conference is about.  Every four years the Methodist church sends delegates from around the world to meet together for “Holy Conferencing” to discuss the state of the church and to debate issues regarding the future direction of global church efforts.  It’s a little more complicated than that but this gives you a rough idea in a nutshell.  This year, is a General Conference year, and we have a new “hot button” issue to add to the list of perennial hot button issues that come up at General Conference time.  The issue is how does the United Methodist Church reverse the membership decline that has plagued so many “mainline“ denominations?  In preparation, our leadership formed yet another committee to do a study, in order to come up with a plan that could be presented at General Conference.  It has a catchy name “Call to Action”.  This group, called in consultants and did various studies and then issued a report with their recommendations.  Since then, there has been a tremendous amount of debate from both sides and lots of ink used to defend various positions.  As we approach General Conference, the rhetoric is starting to pick up in tempo.

As a lay member who will not be at General Conference and has listened to both sides of the debate on restructuring all I have to say is I see a whole lot of talking going on, but I surely do not see a whole lot of listening going on!  If this is our definition of “Holy Conferencing” then we are in trouble!  When you have individuals from Bishops to Delegates writing and essentially saying “this is my position and I don’t care what you have to say” then we have a problem!  Everyone is so busy talking past each other and highlighting “bullet points” and defending turf that we have turned a deaf ear to listening!  This group, will decide the future of my church and expect me to take them seriously, while pounding the war drums of entrenched positions!  Seriously???  Where is the Holy Conferencing?  Where is the prayer, the discernment, and most importantly, the listening to each other, even if you do not agree?  With everything going on in the world this is where we draw battle lines?  How many people are starving in the world?  How many people are dying from preventable diseases?  How many people could use a roof over their head, or clean water, or training that would give them an opportunity to make something better of themselves?  Dear delegates, I am begging you-please stop talking long enough to listen!

I pray that each of you will go to General Conference with a willingness to listen.  I pray that you are filled with a spirit of discernment and an openness to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying, regardless of whether it lines up with your pre-determined position on a topic.  I don’t care what the consultants recommend, I don’t care what popular culture is expecting, I care about what God is asking us, as a denomination to do!  Be open, be flexible, but most importantly, be willing to listen!  There is so much to be done and we as a denomination will not be able to move on and do the things that need to be done, if we are too busy advancing agendas, instead of listening to what God is calling us to do!  Imagine that the Holy Spirit is the guy, out in the middle of nowhere, holding the cell phone, saying “can you hear me now?”  Be the one who says “yes, I’m listening!”  And may the Lord truly bless our ministry!