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"The Lost Art of Listening"It’s a common complaint—“He doesn’t hear a word I say.” We’ve all been frustrated by this. Our children don’t listen; our parents don’t; our spouses don’t; our employees don’t; and customer service agents are hired because they’re deaf. In the Old Testament Pharaoh would not listen to Moses. Nabal refused to listen to his wife and suffered terrible consequences. Even God has this problem. He sent prophet after prophet with messages for his people but “they would not hear.” On the other hand we’ve been told over and over again that listening is the simplest way to help hurting people; the so-called generation gap would evaporate if parents and children would listen to each other; most marital problems grow out of failure to listen to each other. Worse yet, there are multitudes who will miss heaven and eternal life because they refused to listen.What does good listening look like? It means minimizing distractions, that is, putting the paper down, turning off the TV, or laying aside the iPhone. It means looking the person in the eyes and reading body language along with hearing the words. It means asking for clarification or repetition if there’s something you don’t understand. It means asking yourself if there’s any reason you can’t say yes to this. I means being ready to apologize for something. It means resisting the impulse to formulate a response before the speaker is finished. It means encouraging them to say everything they need to say without interrupting.James tells us to be quick to listen and slow to speak (1:19). You cannot imagine how enjoyable every facet of life would be if we could discipline ourselves to practice this. By all means, hone your skill at home first. Then practice it at work and at church. You’ll be very pleased when the multitudes rise up and call you blessed.