“Listening with your heart” per Warren Wiersbe

In his book “Caring People”, Warren Wiersbe talks about learning to Listen with your heart.  There are certain times that we need to just listen to people get their feelings and emotions out.  We may not agree and we may want to give them all kinds of great advice, but all they really need at that time is to unload.

In the Book of Job, we find Job at times saying things that were not accurate or best about his situation, about God and about his friends.  We find God just let him unload, and then, rather than correct him in all areas, God just redirected his attention to God and away from his situation.

I have learned as a Pastor that there are times I just listen and tell people “I understand” and not tell them “I agree” because I may not agree.  They just need someone to listen and understand their problems.  I worked for fifteen years for a large Retail corporation and they called this “empathizing” with the customer.  The customer would come in mad when things did not go their way.  They wanted to tell you how terrible the product was.  We would tell them “we understand how frustrating that must be” and then help them get if fixed.  Often, the problem was their fault, we just didn’t tell them that.  It would escalate the problem.

Often in ministry we understand that people are the problem.  No doubt about it.  We sin and we are sinners.  Sometimes though, like the Psalmist, we are just frustrated and want someone  to listen to our griping.  We are not agreeing to sin, we are agreeing to frustration.