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When you’re really listening to somebody, you’re not doing a lot of other things.
“[A] gift of not doing – not interrupting, not attempting to solve problems, not prematurely or inappropriately advising, not assuming that what has worked for you will work for others.” David Benner
“[W]illing to listen. . . .” Ezekiel 3:7
When an angry person doesn’t yell or a shy person says one small thing or a grouchy person doesn’t grouse, it might not look like much, but maybe at that moment she’s giving everything she has.
“[Jesus] watched attentively as the crowds put money into the temple treasury. . . . ‘[T]his poor widow gave more than all the others. . . . They all gave out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, gave everything she had. . . .’” Mark 12:41, 43-44
Father, when what somebody contributes doesn’t look like much, please help me to see and appreciate through Your eyes.
On very dark days, you feel so alone and hopeless that it’s easy to forget the truest thing of all: you aren’t.
“Though it is black and we can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us. . . .” Ann Voscamp
“If I make my bed in the depths, You are there. . . . Even there Your hand will guide me and . . . hold me.” Psalm 139:8, 10
When you start to get annoyed or discouraged because somebody forgot to thank you, it’s a good time to ask yourself who you’ve forgotten to thank lately.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye but pay no attention to the log in your own eye?” Luke 6:41
“[T]he critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” G. K. Chesterton
Thinking about all the things you haven’t accomplished and all the ways you come up short and all the attention you never get is a lot like walking into a prison cell and locking the door from the inside.
Father, please free me today, thought by thought, from the prison of self-focus. From Psalm 146:7
“Freedom from myself will be/The sweetest rest I’ve ever known.” Chris Rice
Some people think that God keeps close tabs on what we owe, but I think that He’s like my friend who is always looking for chances to say it’s on the house.
“He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32
Father, I want to always be looking today for chances to graciously give.
