A Heart with Ears

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the counselor’s couch—again. If you look back at some of my archived posts, you’ll find I spend a fair amount of time on this couch. He handed me a worksheet of sorts. I had to read a handful of statements and decide whether they were a fact or a judgment.

Two things occurred to me as I did this exercise. One, I had to skip a few statements to get to the easy ones. I was stumped. And two, I had a flashback to elementary school and Fact and Opinion Worksheets. Remember those?

I stopped and looked up at the counselor. “Hey, shouldn’t this be fact or opinion, and I write F or O by each statement?”

“Krista, give me the definition of opinion?”

“Ohhhh. It’s a judgment. Well that changes things, doesn’t it?”

Can you see why I had trouble with some of those statements? Over the years my brain has become so conditioned that I don’t even recognize judgment—to the point of renaming it this nice sounding word, “opinion.” Dear Lord! Not only have I received so much judgment over the years, but yikes, have I ever been a judger myself.

As this election season is upon us, I’m thinking we should rename Opinion Polls to Judgement Polls. It has a ring doesn’t it? And, while we are it, why don’t we stop and do some self-reflection? Ask ourselves the tough questions—am I opinionated, I mean a judger? If I post this article or statement on social media, could my opinion, I mean judgment, hurt others, or cause division? What if we filtered our thoughts, our words, and our actions a little more wisely? Before I speak, post, or interject, is this fact, or is this judgment?

In this uncertain climate we are living in right now, we are searching for answers. Some think they have all the answers. We need to do this, this and this, and then it will be all better. Some think silence and distancing from the issues is the way to fix it. I’ve been in both camps the last few weeks, and all its left me is confused and defeated.

So, what do we do?

Maybe it’s not so much what we do, but what we become.

A heart with ears.

Wait. What? What does that even mean?

It means listening without giving advice, without offering solutions, without asking a heap load of questions, without sharing our own stories and experiences, without judgment. Sounds hard doesn’t it? Like seriously, just sitting with another person and listening? A heart with ears. And wait, it can get even more uncomfortable, because what if while we are listening, the other person becomes emotional? Do we just sit in the puddle of tears with them? Yes, I think that’s what it means.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about my personal experiences with racism. I received an overwhelming amount of positive comments, phone calls and texts. I cried over your words to me because they touched me so deeply. You were a “heart with ears.” You read that post and responded in the most heartfelt, humble way. Later on, after some good listening, some of you reached out and asked what more could be done?

Be a heart with ears.

Continue to enter the tough conversations as a listener. Whether the conversation is around racism, a global pandemic, or a personal crisis a friend is experiencing, be a heart with ears. Do you see what a humble posture that is? Humility is God’s favorite. He can do so much with a humble heart.

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” James 3: 13, 16, 17. NLT