Listening with Love

An Advent Reflection and an Awesome Playlist

It’s hard for me to feel a connection with someone who talks all the time. If a person never takes a breath and asks me how I’m doing, I can’t help but feel like they’re using me. When I think about it, listening is a centerpiece of all the relationships in my life that I cherish the most. My relationship with my wife, with my parents, with my closest friends and mentors, all of them are marked by each of us taking time to listen to the other. Even before my children could talk, we found ways to listen to each other.

Listening and love are entwined and inseverable. We cannot love someone well without listening to them and we cannot listen to someone well if we don’t do so from a place of love. Mennonite minister David Augsburger wrote, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.”

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

--Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)

In Advent we remember that out of God’s love for us, God heard us. When God heard us, God came to dwell among us in Jesus Christ. And in flesh, Jesus taught us how to love and listen to God and each other. Jesus left us with many teachings, but the most important was to love God and love our neighbor. And so this advent love God by listening to God, and love your neighbor by listening to them.

The Advent Love Playlist

Now it’s time to enjoy The Listening Church Advent Love Playlist, created by your fellow readers. It’s so good!

Join The Listening Church Music League today and submit a song for the Advent Joy Playlist!