Hearing - James 1:19-20

1:19-20 - James now goes into his principles for righteous living beginning with “let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” The listening and speaking is an interesting concept because I don’t really think it’s addressed too much in the scriptures but it’s an excellent principle for a number of ways. The phrase “swift” implies an earnest desire to fulfill a need, it implies speed and commitment to the cause, and it’s an active word. But the word “hear” is a passive word, and it can mean anything from being physically present when the sound is created to giving strict attention to every noise made and everything in between. Even though the two words seem contradictory, we might conclude that the counsel to “be swift to hear” means that we are to be eager to listen to the opinions and thoughts of others. Then again, when most people listen, they don’t actually hear what their companion is saying, but only waiting for their turn to talk. This is definitely something that I have struggled with, its human nature and when you’re so starved for attention like I was/am, then it’s just something that happens. I’ve actively worked on this skill and it’s hard, I find myself still interrupting people, but it’s gotten better and it’s really benefitted me personally. There are a couple of principles at work here, the first of which is the lynch pin and that is that every single person loves to talk about themselves. If you are a listening ear to what they want to say about themselves, they reveal so much about who they are, their hopes and dreams and so much of the time, their trauma. It’s an opportunity to connect with someone in a way that most other people won’t. That’s not to say that you are using or manipulating them or anything like that. There’s a story a friend told me about how there was this guy who always made him feel like he was the most important person in the world when they interacted. My friend said that he loved that feeling and wanted to be the guy who made people feel good about themselves. As he tried to analyze and implement the aspects of his guy’s personality that was so unique, he actually found that it was sometimes exhausting because so many people need a human connection that it becomes overwhelming. As I’ve tried to be that person too, I’ve also noticed the exhaustion. But it can also be very rewarding. It’s an interesting dynamic and I have no regrets. The various sources that I’ve read about this verse talks about the importance of applying this to children. I heard something once that was very powerful to me. It comes from Catherine M. Wallace who says, “Listen earnestly to anything (your children) want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.” This advice changed the way that I parented and there were even a couple of times when my children said, “no one ever listens to me except you.” It is heartbreaking to hear that, but at the same time, very rewarding because I had tangible rewards for my efforts. As I’ve tried to do this with all kids, it has become painfully clear to me just how rare listening to kids really is. I’m not saying I’m the perfect parent because I absolutely am not, but it’s just something that I’ve observed while trying to be better. The phrase “slow to speak” can mean a couple of different things, first that perhaps our motivation for interacting with people should be to make the experience pleasant for them, instead of just waiting to show our intellectual superiority. This is a hard one because we want people to know what we think and why because we obviously think that we are right about everything. We are supposed to engage in conversation that helps people feel good about themselves, encourages them to persist in righteousness, and that doesn’t happen when we word vomit our opinions without cause or concern for the feelings of others. We should endeavor to make the words that we say count for substance, again which is hard. And maybe it’s just because people to blather on and on are annoying and it’s hard to preach the gospel when others avoid you because of your irritating personality traits. The second way “slow to speak” might be interpreted is for us to focus on saying what the Lord wants us to say. This is also a difficult concept to appreciate because it’s just so counter to human nature. We want to say what we want to say when we want to say it and we want to do it as loud as we can. But when everyone else in the world feels the same way, there is a lot of noise and not too much focus on others. And for the people who retain that characteristic, who haven’t learned how to keep it in check enough to conform to societal standards, they are so annoying that no one wants to be around them. And again, it’s pretty hard to be a servant of God when people actively avoid you. There have been many times within the last couple of years when I’m having a conversation with someone, when something is brought up and either I have no idea what to say to them or I’m not confident that my words will be helpful. Many times I pray “please help me say the right thing to this person,” and I feel like it usually works. There have also been several times recently when Jesus told me to shut my mouth. Especially with the pandemic and people having different opinions about it than I do. I work in health care, I was in the army where we got so many vaccines, like I’ve had 9 anthrax shots, so I think that I have a reasonable opinion so I’ll talk to people about being vaccinated against covid, wearing masks, etc. And then I’ll hear the Spirit say “stop.” And it’s hard because I believe I’m right so strongly, but the impression I’ve got is that I am not to alienate or irritate or offend people about this subject so I just need to stop those conversations where they are. We are also counseled to be “slow to wrath.” “Wrath” is one of those old timey words that I’ve always just thought meant “being mad” but the IM gives a definition as, “intense, vengeful anger, a characteristic that Paul described as one of the ‘works of the flesh,’ or one of the characteristics of the fallen, natural man.” This makes it sound like wrath is long term, concentrated anger and that’s exhausting. Not only will this emotion be a detriment to our own physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, the IM interprets James’ teaching saying, “wrath does not allow the Spirit of the Lord to flourish, and, as James taught, does not achieve God’s righteous purposes.” Getting to the point where we work throughout anger so that we will be better servants of God if a long process because anger, fury, hatred, etc. are all natural emotions. We feel entitled to them, and on a psychological level, we can harbor the negativity as a defense mechanism. Usually the first step, or at least this is how it went for me, is to recognize the damage that this negativity is causing in our lives. Then we have to work out why we actually feel it, where it comes from and then consciously endeavor to substitute the negative reactions for positive ones. It’s a lot of work and my first motivation was to strengthen my own mental health. I wanted to be happier and I recognized that the anger and bitterness was detrimental to that, so I worked on it. I still really struggle with it a lot and it’s taken years, but I’m doing better, and I’m really grateful for the guidance and hand holding from Jesus as I work to move forward.