On a recent podcast, I heard the speaker say, “We have less capacity to listen in our culture today than we did in the past.” I disagree. I say, “No, our capacity is not the issue, our intentionality is.” Jesus said it: “He or she who has ears to hear, listen”
I’ve been musing on this and found myself coming to a new thought: What happens to the mentor when they have ears to hear? Does something change in you as a mentor because you engage in deep listening? I think the answer is yes.
When mentors have ears to hear
You enter holy ground because listening not only takes you into a deep relationship with a mentee, but you are also initiated into the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you are truly present, you will find yourself close to God. Not only does the mentee have the possibility of experiencing God’s presence and voice, but the mentor enters the same space with the same possible experience.
You enter a space for the exchange and experience of love. Listening is a form of love. We all know that as we raise children, care for elderly parents, and seek to develop significant friendships with others. Listening is not all there is to love, but there is no love without listening.
There is rest. Rest is possible when you are present to another. You read those words correctly. Rest, not restlessness, is a holy outcome. Of course, if you bring a fractured and stressed self to the room, you will not find rest because you will not be able to listen well. Your spirit will be outside the room, still trying to calm down stress, fracturedness, and distraction. But if you are present to another, it’s possible to be restful within ourselves. When I listen, there’s nothing to do except be actively engaged and waiting. When I listen deeply, I am not trying to change another, prepare for the next meeting, or interpret the person, judge them, or read into their story from my own.
I sense that I am in a place, a holy place of worship. Wait, you might say, isn’t worship about God? Of course, and listening places me in the face of one created in the image and likeness of God. So, I worship. I say thanks, I acknowledge God’s presence, I wait, and say yes to this moment.
An echoing effect
I am not the only one being used by the Holy Spirit in the formation of another into Christlikeness; the very words I speak, the pauses I take, the ways that I acknowledge that I hear the other—all have an echoing effect on me. When I preached weekly, I had an experience, not every time, but often, where I heard God speaking to me as I spoke my words to my congregation. Did you know that was possible? It is because the Spirit prays for us, listens for us, loves through us, even when we may not have the capacity for all of that ourselves.