Be Quick To Listen

Good Morning!! Active listening is perhaps the most important key to communicating, with anyone. It shows that you care, that you value and respect their input. Three examples of active listening are restatement, clarifying and summarizing. Restatement means repeating the content of what was said. This conveys that you are paying attention, and are interested in hearing what they have to say. Clarifying might sound like this: "Do you mean..., or what you're saying is..." and relay in your own words what you think you heard. Summarizing pulls together their message, as you understood it,...and draws it to a concluding point based on what you have seen and heard in the conversation.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.—James 1:19, 20 (NIV)
 Active listening can help two people understand each other better, and help build the trust level between you. It is a way to encourage and build up one another,...and can have a calming effect when someone is angry or frustrated, because of what they believe to be a lack of caring. (A word of caution; active listening is not effective when some one is out of control,...for example, intoxicated, severely depressed, or enraged.
 

Be careful, in the beginning, active listening can seem like mocking. 

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Lord, help us be quick to listen,...and to listen actively. In Jesus' name, Amen.

"The end of adolescence does not signal the end of peer influence,
...our friends, the people we work with, the people we choose to hang out with,
...all help to shape us throughout our lives."