Pastor David Cameron has written this week’s letter. We hope you are blessed by his thoughts this week.

“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

It’s getting awfully ANGRY out these days. Who’s getting angry you ask? Pretty much everyone, for many different reasons.

Some seem (to me) like pretty good reasons… and some much less so.

But let’s be honest; it’s possible to get very, very angry without reasoning why. Anger speeds, tailgates, and smashes in uninvited, fast, and hard.   

Anger seems to be crashing a lot of conversations. People start out discussing something and are soon talking (or yelling) with great passion, volume, and speed, but no one is LISTENING.  

This was explained well by Fran Lebowitz in ‘Social Studies’ when she wrote: “The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.”

Almost anyone, with good upbringing and some practice, can get to the point where someone else can respond with their two cents, at least occasionally. 

Listening is a much harder thing to do. So hard in fact that if we aren’t careful, we will find ourselves pretending to listen instead of doing it; waiting for our chance to talk instead of hearing the person trying to speak with us.

Listening, in the deepest, best sense, involves not just hearing, but the desire to understand, not only what someone is saying, but why. It requires thinking deeply about what, how, and why they are telling us this BEFORE thinking anything about what we have to say about it. That’s hard. Our emotions want knee-jerk speed reactions and immediate response.

If we won’t be still and listen, who will? Our Father, who knows ALL THINGS takes time to listen to us. We are called to do likewise. Set aside anger, indignation, fear, and LISTEN. If we cannot hear out neighbor who is crying out, how can we hear God’s still, small voice?

Peace in Christ,

David