Perhaps the most central action to living grace with agape love is to listen in ways that help us deeply understand others. We access grace through diverse insights heard from a deeper stance.
Even when we disagree grace equips us to listen. An inner grace-filled whisper nurtures our everyday activities with generosity and gentleness.
Listening is a deliberate choice we practice to crack the door open to others by welcoming expression of their ideas. It does not require affirmation of concepts that flow against our beliefs. Yet listening gives ear to build relationships and learn from those who differ.
To listen with a grace filter is to incline our focus onto others and invites us to consider new ideas as if they come from a beloved brother or sister. A challenge for today might be to set out with a mind to listen and with grace to respond in a way that benefits all, even in the most difficult topics within a chaotic world.
Rather than pass God by without noticing His agape loving-kindness, let’s pay careful and close attention to hear through a filter of grace. Then let’s act on what we hear so that listening achieves unconditional loving-kindness to all concerned.
Yes, the highest form of listening has us acting on what we hear, and often it means welcoming the change that grace-filled hearing brings. How so? We let go of past assumptions and even leap beyond our worldview for a moment, in order to understand what matters to the person we hear. We hear from the opposite side of persistent demands to defend our position, rather than simply make space to genuinely understand where others come from.
The goal of grace-filled listening is not to agree with another’s arrogant or disgusting ideas, but to begin to understand and care deeply about the person who espouses them. A two-footed question such as “What if…” would help here to awaken our curiosity for what makes others tick and what has led them into the ideas expressed.
Perhaps another’s view will furrow the ground under our own beliefs, or it may simply deepen our own understanding of where another person comes from. To hear that person with grace in mind, is not to always agree with their side of any topic. It simply extends amazing grace and unconditional kindness to care about other people in ways that awaken us to God’s unconditional love for us and for all creation.
YOUR TURN! Join our Brain Based Circles! Would love to meet you at any of the following!
Brain Leaders and Learners Blog
Mita Brain Center Facebook at @mitabraincenter
efweber on Pinterest
@ellenfweber on Twitter
ellenfweber on Instagram
Ellen Weber on Google+
Ellen Weber on LinkedIngrowth