Learning to Be Quick to Listen, Slow to Get Angry, and Slow to Speak

 

The gist of the sermon that Jeffrey Rudy, pastor of Murray First UMC, preached this morning may be summed up in three brief statements. “Be quick to listen. Be slow to get angry. Be slow to speak.” This was the essence of his sermon. He would elaborate on each statement, what it means in practice. He would also make connections between these three principles and God’s own character as described in the Bible. He would draw to the congregation’s attention that in following these principles we would be emulating Jesus and gave an example. It was an encouraging sermon.

As is my wont, I reflected on the sermon later in the day. It is something that I am in habit of doing. At some point in the day, I will think about the sermon. I may not do it intentionally. Thinking about the sermon may begin with thinking about something else, something that may be going on in my life.

Today I was thinking about how forgiving other people’s failings, real or perceived, can be a struggle for some of us. It can be really hard for us to let go of our anger toward someone who has said or done something which has triggered angry feelings in us. What they did or said may not have been done or said with malicious intent, but it set off a strong emotional reaction of anger in us. This anger may be disproportionate to what they said or did and may not be entirely related to that stimulus. It may be anger that we have been bottling us because we learned at some point in our life that it was not safe for us to express our anger. It would evoke a negative response from our environment. Because we may be hanging onto a lot of anger, it may be difficult for us to forgive. Forgiveness essentially involves stopping any feelings of anger or resentment toward someone for something that they said or did and not holding what they said or did against them.

My thoughts would turn to today’s sermon. It would also turn to some experiences which I have had in the past.

I believe that God puts people in our lives for a purpose. Our meeting with someone in life’s way is not merely by random chance. We may not gather what that purpose is. God may have more than one purpose. God may put them in our lives to be a means of grace to us. We may be surprised how God may use them to be the means by which he shows us grace, by which he works in us to will and do his good pleasure, by which he inspires and enables us to grow more like Jesus, to grow in our love of God and our love of our fellow human beings.

Jesus taught that God is good to everybody, even the wicked and the ungrateful. What God does is meant for our good, not our ill. Some things which to our perceptions do not appear to be for our good, are not intended for our ill. They may be intended to teach us to be more caring, more compassionate, more forgiving, more honest, more generous, gentler, more helpful, kinder, more loving, more merciful, more open-handed, more patient, more self-controlled, more tender-hearted, more thoughtful, more truthful; to pattern our lives in other ways on what Jesus himself taught and practiced.

Here are my thoughts on being quick to listen, slow to get angry, and slow to speak.

Being quick to listen. While we may want to hear someone out, to listen to what they say without interrupting them, to check with them to make sure that we understand them, they may not be able to tell us what is troubling them. They may be afraid that they may lose their temper. We may wish to make things right between them and ourselves, but they may not be prepared to do so at that particular time. We may need to give them space.

This may prove hard to do because we may care a great deal about them and experience pain ourselves when we see that they are hurting. We may be in the habit of blaming ourselves when things go wrong between someone else and us. We want to get to the root of what has happened and to do what we can to fix it.

All we can, however, do is show that we are willing to hear them out and provide them with a safe environment in which they can talk with us in the event they bring themselves to talk with us. We can show that we are not going to jump down their throats because of what they might say.

The other thing we can do is keeping on loving them. We do not know what they may experienced in their lives and how these experiences may have affected them. Our love for them, however, must have no strings attached. We love them with the love that God has for us. It is the kind of love that we would show a fussy baby. At the same time, we seek to see what is causing them to cry and what is keeping them from sleeping. It is love accompanied by caring and concern.

Being slow to anger. We need to know ourselves. We need to know our own emotional triggers, the things that set off feelings of anger and resentment in us. We need to monitor our internal dialogue, what we are saying to ourselves in our minds in reaction to what they are saying. What we are saying to ourselves may be what is triggering our own angry or resentful feelings. What they have said or done may have triggered unpleasant memories of what has happened to us in the past. It may have stirred up old feelings, unwanted feelings, feelings with which we are not comfortable or which we tend to avoid. When we experience such feelings, we may choose to feel angry or resentful in place of these feelings. It is our way of keep away from or stopping ourselves from feeling these feelings.

On the other hand, we may experience anxiety rather than anger. This is not uncommon in people who learned very early in life, it was not safe for them to directly express their anger. Any direct expression of anger elicited a negative reaction from their environment. They learn to express their anger in indirect ways. They also are likely to experience anxiety where other people would experience anger. We frequently experience anxiety when we are overstimulated by a stressful environment or when we perceive someone or something as a threat to us while at the same time perceiving ourselves as unable to cope with that threat. Unacknowledged and unexpressed anxiety often may turn into frustration, which may trigger anger. When this happens, psychologists tell us, it is because we may have an underlying fear about something in our lives. We may not be aware of what we are afraid of. When something worries or frightens us, we frequently may unconsciously choose anger to cope with our anxiety. This helps us feel that we are in control of our anxiety.

Both anger and anxiety can interfere with our cognitive functioning and keep us from thinking straight. They can influence how we perceive reality and high levels of anger and anxiety can severely distort our perceptions of reality. They can in turn influence how we choose to respond to what someone is saying or doing. I have learned that from experience, misinterpreting the words and actions of a store clerk because I was frustrated and angry about something else.

For these reasons it important for us to know ourselves in order to not respond with anger or resentment to what someone is saying or doing. We need to have a measure of self-knowledge if we are going to give them our full attention and not let our own thoughts and emotions prevent us from hearing them.

Being slow to speak. This means weighing careful what we are going to say and what impact our words may have for good or ill. We give thought to the consequences of our words, not just their immediate consequences but also their long-term consequences. If we are following Jesus’ teaching and example, our aim is to build up, not tear down; to heal, not injure; to reconcile, not to alienate; to set to rights, not make things worse; to restore relationships, not further damage them.

We need to be mindful of the temptation to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

We need to be sensitive to the nudging of the Holy Spirit while at the same time not confusing the urging of our deceitful heart with the Holy Spirit’s nudging.

As with being slow to get angry, we cannot underestimate the importance of knowing ourselves.

While we may rely at times on our intuition, we need to keep in mind that despite what we may hear, our intuition can make mistakes. Our “hunches” and “gut feelings” will not be right all of the time. They may alert us to something that does not feel right, that may out of place, but they may not accurately identify what is the cause. Nor may they help us in determining the best thing to say or the best course of action to take. What Transactional Analysis, a popular form of psychology, calls the Little Professor may be heavily invested in reinforcing what are unhealthy perceptions of other people, ourselves, and the world.

Being quick to listen, slow to get angry, and slow to speak sounds pretty challenging. But it is how Jesus lived and how God wishes us to live. God does not ask anything of us without supplying us with the grace to have the will to do what he is asking us to do and when we have that will, to enable us to do what he is asking.

God loves us. God does not want anything to come between those who he loves—misunderstandings, hard feelings, distrust. God wants us to love each other as he loves us. God gives us the grace to do that. What we need to do is to open our hearts and our minds to God’s grace.