You can start practicing the skills of assertive communication by paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and needs and respecting their value. Then start doing the same for other people. Check yourself when you are tempted to invalidate someone’s experience or heart. Listen to understand in a conversation—especially to understand what a person is feeling and what they need.
Listening
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The first service one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love of God begins in listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.
Oswald Chambers
Get in the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance.
Sally McClung
It’s so easy to get distracted by the “noise” of the world around me – especially with all the craziness of our current world. There is so much happening that screams for our attention! I often have to consciously work at being still – even when I’m physically weak. But, when I quieten all the other voices, I love hearing His precious whispers!
I don’t know about you, but I need to hear His holy whispers into my heart more than ever before. I can’t make it without Him. I need His love, His care, His guidance, His peace. I am so, so grateful that God speaks to me!
Katherine Walden
I’ve learned this lesson the hard way and perhaps I can help prevent you from going through some painful lessons yourself. In a time of conflict, ask questions but make sure they are genuine questions. Resist the urge to ask questions that lead people to answer in the way you would want them to answer. Unlike Jesus, you don’t know the intentions of a person’s heart. Give your full attention to their answer without mentally formatting your response as they speak. Don’t be afraid of pauses in a conversation. It’s better to be thoughtful than it is to be quick.
Katherine Walden
Daily Christian Quote Website
Brian Johnson
Love leans in first. It listens long enough to understand why. It hears what a person fought through to get to where they are. It listens until it can hear with empathy.
Wendy Backlund
Learning to hear when there is no crisis is good practice for when we are under fire and need urgent help.
Wendy Backlund
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Christy Wimber
Don’t give simple solutions to complicated situations. Sometimes what people are entangled in goes far beyond what we see. Slow to speak, quick to listen.
Katherine Walden
If a person feels the need to tell you the same story countless times, there is a reason. It is either important to their heart or they feel it is important for you to know. Be kind, be attentive, be patient and perhaps you will be the one God uses to help them move past where they are stuck.
Jack Noble
Advent is a good time to look over our life – to see, to hear. To see and hear what God is trying to do with us. To see and hear – amid the scramble and noise of the day – a Baby born in a manger, and to let go. To let go of so much that is unimportant, and to allow God to regather the many and varied strands of life.