FRIDAY

SCRIPTURE: Psalm 66:5

As we come to the end of the week, and perhaps think back over the passages of Scripture we have been considering, let’s return to the Key Verse we began the week with. “Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works on man’s behalf!” (Psalm 66:5). Having now had the opportunity to think more deeply about this throughout the week, how does this passage speak with richer meaning about the challenge of listening?

• What if the passage said “Come and hear” rather than “Come and see”? Do you think it would change the meaning or perhaps add to the understanding?

• What new insights have you gained this week into the centrality and the challenges of listening well?

• Where are the growing edges for you as you fully embrace and embody what it might mean to live in a way that listening rather than talking takes the lead?

• Where are the places of resistance in your life to the idea of “listening well” being at least as important as what we have to say? What do you think the resistance is about?

• As you reflect on this week, what do you sense God inviting you to consider, more fully embrace, or perhaps is nudging you towards?

• What might it be like to be part of a community that found its primary sense of identity and calling less in its ability to speak well, and more in its ability to hear well?

• What we have to say matters. But what if it can only be heard well when we are speaking in a context that takes listening first seriously? What would it look like to create that kind of context?

• Do you wonder why Jesus so often said, “Whoever has ears, let them hear” (e.g., Matthew 11:15)?