因为在神没有一件事是不可能的

Listening is a skill...
...that most, including myself, don't have. The problem is that most don't know it's a skill and don't try to develop it as such.

Young adults tonight, as with most nights, made me think about something totally different than I expected. It's cool how God does that. But I didn't really like how it came about.

In a big group it's hard to talk about one thing and have it stay on that topic. What I saw tonight was surprising because most thought it stayed on topic.

We are going through philippians. Tonight we were going to go through chapter 4. We came upon verse 8 where Paul makes a list of things we should think or meditate on. Recently I have been thinking about this list, especially how it omits the Word of God (though this is taught in other portions [especially psalm 119]) as one of the things to meditate on. I think this is for a very specific reason.

The Bible is completely true from start to finish. It can be tested and doubted. And it has been for hundreds of years. I won't get all apologetic, but it always comes through tests standing. So the Bible is entirely true, but truth is not entirely contained within the Bible. In other words, God is bigger than this book He wrote.

I brought up, not quite as well articulated as I try to write here, that truth can be found outside the Bible. I didn't expect for people to agree with me, many don't. But I realized that when I would make an example to illustrate my point people would get hung up on the example.

For instance.

I brought up finding truth in other religions and we hit a half hour long discussion of being able to discern truth in other religions. The general thought was that we shouldn't go studying them for truth and the like. Whatever, I don't care about that! I wasn't talking about other religions, I was talking about truth in general being found outside scripture. Be it science, religion, philosophy, psychology, or whatever.

Then I tried to get everyone back on topic by talking about how this should change our lives. How seeing truth in everything should change our attitudes. But I made the mistake of bringing up witnessing as an example and everyone got off on different methods and how we should all rely on the Spirit to witness.

Now, that's not what I was getting at in the slightest. But that's what people heard.

My point was that seeing something good and true in a person should change how we view them. I've used the example before, seeing a prostitute as a mom. Seeing a homeless guy as someone with discipline because they can stand out on the corner for 6 hours every day. (I've done it, it's hard and humbling. Don't ever yell or throw your trash at a guy on the corner.)

But this point was completely overlooked.

How could something this big be misunderstood? It got me thinking about how we process what we learn. Why is the main point often completely missed?

I'm pretty sure it has to do with what everyone is learning personally. From what every person said tonight, I could go through and tell you what God has been teaching them this week. One person is learning prayer, one witnessing, one trust, etc. So why did they seemingly disregard the main topic of the discussion without even knowing it?

I think it's because everything that was said was filtered through their recent experiences and knowledge. And the only content that made it through was whatever fit through that filter.

Say God is really teaching one person to pray. Out of everything I said the only thing that they would connect with is praying for discernment when looking for truth. So they would talk about that. Then the next person who is learning about evangelism only hears my example about witnessing so they would talk about that. They both heard every word I said but each is using their own filter.

It was all very frustrating. And I realize how much we don't actually listen to what people say.

So I spent most of the night trying to understand the main point of what people were really saying.