Heart listening spiritual formation begins when we learn to hear not just other people’s words, but the deeper ideas, desires, wounds, and longings shaping their hearts.
This episode is part of Season 3.
Click here for the Season 3 overview.
TRANSCRIPTION
Listening to Others’ Hearts
If you don’t understand the episode title, just search for it online and watch the video. Hilarious.
We’re continuing with our exploration of spiritual habits, or what some call spiritual disciplines.
Today, we’re starting with some theology and somehow end up in modern-day sales training.
Quick Review
We’ve discovered through our study of the Bible and anthropology that there are five key elements necessary for any one person to become like another person: substantial time, specifically designed habits, intentional and purposeful community, appropriate intimacy, and repetitious and increasingly complex instruction.
We’re exploring the second key element of formation: habits.
Habits are repeated patterns of our Eight Heartview Indicators. So how we think, behave, feel, speak, and relate, and how we treat our health, time, and money in relation to God, others, ourselves, and creation.
Changing our habits may be as simple as doing what Jesus did. But it may not be. Our hearts may be formed solely by changing our habits, but it’s not always that easy. Sometimes, heart change has to happen first. Or sometimes the heart and habits change together. The human heart is complex, so just trying to will ourselves to change may not be the solution. Sometimes it may make things worse. We’re human beings, not human doings.
That’s why there are five key elements of formation and not just one.
In the last episode, we looked at just one habit. The habit of hearing God.
Since we’re looking at these key elements in the light of our four relationships, today we’re going to explore the habit of listening to others. Not just their words, but their hearts.
A Little Theology
Ok, let’s start with some theology to set the stage.
Modern Christianity struggles with genuine discipleship, the journey to become more like our teacher. This struggle is called the Great Omission, and it’s having a damaging, debilitating impact on the church and culture.
We’re apprentices of Jesus so that we become more like Jesus. So that we think like He thinks, relate like He relates, desire what He desires, love like He loves. That our conscious and unconscious ideas are molded into His ideas.
For the most part, modern church institutions don’t seem to be oriented around this journey of forming our hearts. As we’ve explored, if our spiritual journey has six stages, most modern institutions are concerned only with the first three. So, when we inevitably hit stage 4, the Journey Inward and the Wall, we may find ourselves lonely, disconnected, and without a guide or help.
Certain aspects of modern Christianity are very concerned about evangelism, though even that has been reduced in the last century or so. We rarely share the Gospel of the Kingdom – what we typically hear is a boiled-down version of what’s called the Gospel of Salvation.
John Murray wrote a book titled “Redemption Accomplished and Applied.” It’s a theological textbook written in the 1950’s.
Murray takes a careful look at “salvation” in the New Testament in its comprehensive form. While you and I tend to assume today that “salvation” means the moment we choose to follow Jesus, Murray teaches that the New Testament presents a much broader, much more comprehensive picture. Salvation is an event, but it’s also a journey.
Salvation as a Journey
Lots of people know Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”[1]
As popular as verse 28 is, verse 29 is equally unpopular. Very few people want to memorize that.
Verse 30 is often considered Paul’s summary of this “journey of salvation.” Paul articulates the beginning, middle, and end.
He writes, “…and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”[2]
Calling, justification, glorification. The beginning, middle, and end of the journey of salvation.
When you think about it, we’re pretty comfortable with this type of process in other areas of life.
Let’s say you felt drawn to the field of accounting. You felt “called” to become a CPA. And so off you went.
After passing your exam, your standing changed. You went from being a non-CPA to being recognized as a full accredited CPA.
Having this change in standing made all the difference in the world, but you had a long way to go to become a mature, wise, expert CPA. Through a journey of ups and downs, mistakes and successes, mentorship, and life experience, you’re eventually inducted into the CPA Hall of Fame.
Calling – you were drawn to a career as a CPA.
Justification – you were legally recognized as a CPA.
Glorification – at the end of your journey, you become a Hall of Fame CPA.
My example isn’t all that theologically accurate, but you get the point. Even if we aren’t familiar with salvation as a process, we’re certainly familiar with other processes like it.
So, the comprehensive picture of “salvation” in the New Testament is far more than the moment we accept Jesus, or choose to follow Jesus, or what we commonly think of as “born again” or “saved.” Though we are justified at that moment, our formative journey of salvation has just begun. We were saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.
Do We Expect to Try Different Habits?
So, what does all of this have to do with our habits?
Our habits are tied to our expectations, and we have many unconscious ideas about expectations.
If modern church institutions aren’t prioritizing forming people into being more like Jesus, we certainly won’t have that expectation either. So, we won’t explore or try habits that would help form us to be like Him. If we view salvation as a one-time event with no real meaning or purpose until we die, what expectation or motivation would we have to continue the salvation journey right now?
Consider this. If you were to list the most common habits that we should engage in as Christians, what are the ones that come quickly to mind?
- Corporate worship: we show up to church each weekend
- Prayer
- Bible study: both in groups and by ourselves
- Small group: so that we experience “community.”
Let’s compare that list of four to just one list of habits that have been practiced for centuries by disciples of Jesus. This is the list Richard Foster provides in his book Celebration of Discipline.
Meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.[3]
In Dallas Willard’s book on spiritual disciplines, he mentions a few more: frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice.[4]
There is no comprehensive list of habits because spiritual disciplines can be as creative as the human person.
Why don’t we hear more about these habits or spiritual disciplines, this wonderful key element of formation, apart from the very good practices of corporate worship activities and prayer?
Because so many of us don’t expect the Christian life to be one of ongoing, intentional formation.
Trying, engaging, and practicing habits is ingrained in the heart and mind of anyone who wants to be formed into someone else, whether you want to be a heart surgeon, a CPA, a concert pianist, or a better husband or wife.
Spiritual disciplines work the same way. If we expect to become more like Jesus, we’re going to look at His habits and those of His friends, and we’re going to try them. We’ll experiment, we’ll test, we’ll work on this thing for a while, and that thing for a while.
In the last episode, we looked at the habit of hearing God. That doesn’t seem so bad. Most of us wouldn’t mind hearing from God regularly.
But what about hearing other people? Not just listening to their words, but learning to listen to their hearts.
Heart Listening
Let’s explore the habit of what we’ll call “heart listening.”
We develop the discipline of hearing others’ hearts, so that we may love and serve them better. So that we may be redeemers, reconcilers, and restorers as we “live the Kingdom.”
Jesus is a master at this. It’s quite extraordinary. As I read through the Gospels, I’m amazed at how Jesus immediately senses and knows the motivations and conditions of people’s hearts.
In Mark 2, Jesus knows the Pharisees’ motives when he heals a man and tells him his sins are forgiven. He listens to their hearts again in Chapter 3 when he heals a man on the Sabbath.
In Mark 10, Jesus knows the true motivations of the rich young ruler. In chapter 12, the Pharisees try to trick Jesus with a loaded question, but Mark tells us Jesus “knew their hypocrisy.”
Jesus knew the motivations in Judas’ heart and that Peter would deny Him.
Jesus knew the woman at the well’s heart. He knew the heart of the Syrophoenician woman.
You might be thinking, “Well, of course, Jesus knows the hearts of people. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is God.”
Fair enough, though don’t forget that this side of Pentecost, this very same God lives inside you.
And we see the same sort of heart-listening habit with other normal humans, namely the apostles in the book of Acts.
In Acts 3, Peter healed the lame beggar, and the guy didn’t even ask for it. Peter discerns the selfish motivations in the hearts of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. In Chapter 8, he gets the sense that Simon the Magician’s heart isn’t in the right spot and tells him so in no uncertain terms.
In Chapter 14, Paul senses a man has enough faith to be healed without speaking to him.
People who walk closely with Jesus have an intense curiosity about the condition of the hearts of those around them. And it appears that sometimes the Holy Spirit reveals it as true or for healing.
But maybe we’re not quite comfortable with the idea that modern disciples may spiritually discern the motivations or concerns of those around them.
Fair enough – let’s look at a more “natural” discipline of discerning hearts: asking the right questions.
Five times
I started my career in radio. No, that’s not entirely correct. I first started my career as a broke, unsuccessful musician. Then I worked in radio.
I worked in various operational roles at a radio station in Pittsburgh and was eventually invited to join the department where the money was made – radio advertising sales.
Despite the fact that it was where the money was to be made, I didn’t really like it and didn’t make much money. However, I was paid to be trained in the Sandler Sales system.
The training turned out to be helpful in life and relationships, not just for selling airtime.
It’s in that training that I came to appreciate the habit of being genuinely curious about people. The program taught that, in the sales cycle, it’s important to develop a real, appropriately emotional relationship with your prospect. If you were going to make a sale that truly benefited and served a person, you needed to build a relationship centered on trust.
That meant a good prospect allowed the relationship to develop to where they would share their pain – their real, under-the-surface need. In fact, the sales program taught that, if the prospect showed no interest in developing a trusted relationship, it was time to move on. No trust, no sale.
But how did the salesperson invite the relationship into a level of appropriate depth where the prospect would share the underlying, emotional reason why they might need to buy radio ads?
By asking the question “why.” At least five times.[5] And by listening. Not just to the words, but to the heart.
Here’s an example. Let’s say a radio ad salesperson is meeting with the owner of a dry cleaner, and they meet in the dry cleaner’s office.
The Dry Cleaner
“So would you help me understand why you might be interested in buying advertising on our radio station?”
The dry cleaner responds, “Well, I like your programming and just want to learn more about your station.”
“Ok, that’s great. I’m glad you resonate with our programming. What about our programming interests you?”
The dry cleaner responds, “It’s family-friendly. We’re a family-owned company, and we want to build long-term, trusted relationships with our customers. Some customers come in once a week. We don’t just take their money. We talk with them, and we get to know about their lives. We know their names, and they know ours.”
“That’s amazing,” the salesperson replies sincerely. “You’re a different type of dry cleaner from what many people experience. I would guess that most customers at dry cleaners feel like they’re just making a transaction, not building a relationship. But it sounds like you already have a great clientele. Why might you want to invest in radio ads if you’ve already built such a great customer base?”
The dry cleaner answers, “We do have great customers, but we don’t have enough of them. We’ve grown primarily through customer referrals. But two competitors have opened up within three miles of us in the past year, and the economy is down. We just aren’t seeing enough people come through the door to hit our goals.”
She responds, “I’m sorry to hear that. That does sound like a challenge. Besides the competitors and the economy, have you identified any other reasons why your numbers may not be where you want them?”
“Not really,” the dry cleaner responds. “But I may need to lay off one or two long-term employees, and I want to avoid that.”
The salesperson replies, “I can certainly understand that. Besides potential staff changes, have you identified any other impacts on you or your business due to this new competition and the down economy?
“Sure,” the owner responds. “I’ve had to reduce my income, and I have a daughter I need to send to college in two years.”
Ok, the salesperson asked the question “why” five times in a conversational, natural manner. She didn’t use the word “why” every time. I highlighted the key phrases she used in the blog if you want to see how she guided the conversation.
She invited the dry cleaner into a relationship and allowed him to determine whether he shared the core of his concern. Whether he chose to trust the salesperson.
The conversation started with a surface-level answer: “I want to learn more about your product.” But the conversation ended with the prospect sharing his true, deeper emotional need: his income was down, and he had a daughter who may not be able to go to college.
His “pain” was that he may not be able to provide for someone he loves dearly. And he may lose some long-term employees – people who depend on him for their livelihoods.
What is the salesperson’s posture throughout? Legitimately caring and concerned, truly interested in the business and in the owner, and inviting the prospect into a trusted relationship.
In other words, she served and listened to the owner, desiring to know his heart. She didn’t share about her products, her prices, or her features. That would come later if it made sense. Instead, she asked careful questions and invited the dry cleaner into a relationship. In other words, she was practicing “heart listening.”
Salespeople sometimes get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. But a mature, selfless salesperson is often a fantastic example of a servant, a person with courageous curiosity and a deep desire to listen to the hearts of people.
This is a habit of a disciple: engaging people with the hope of inviting them into deeper, trusted relationships of formation. Five-element communities, such as Greenhouses, practice this habit.
Heart-listening Pointers
Here are a few bullet points on the habit of heart-listening.
- What are we listening for? What do we practice paying attention to?
Heartview Indicators. Just as we practice exploring our own hearts, we develop an attunement for picking up patterns in those around us. Patterns of thinking, feelings, behaviors, relationships, and words, as well as their patterns involving their health, time, and money.
There is a world to explore here, and it’s really fascinating, but I’ll give you just one example that I’ve been practicing for a while.
I try to listen carefully to what someone doesn’t say. I listen for the topics they avoid, for the discussions they leave. Why? Because it helps me listen to their hearts.
Like most people, I have several non-confrontational people in my life. So, there are times when I might ask them an intentional question or make a slightly uncomfortable comment, or address something on which we might politely disagree.
Why would I intentionally do this?
Was Jesus non-confrontational? He was generally the opposite. He often invited confrontation. So, if Jesus was comfortable with confrontation and engaged it for the purpose of growing the Kingdom, and we’re growing to be like Jesus – guess what? We should think about becoming people who are increasingly comfortable with appropriate confrontation.
A non-confrontational person often struggles with their identity. They may be people pleasers, which is generally a sign of covering up old, perhaps forgotten, wounds and hurts.
They may be insecure, if not afraid. Sometimes they’re angry, though they may come across as soft and gentle.
Ironically, people who perpetually avoid conflict are usually conflicted. In their attempts to control their relationships and conversations, they end up giving pieces of themselves away, losing their identity, and deadening themselves to genuine formation.
Our posture towards a non-confrontational person should be compassion. Though compassion is rarely passive. Compassion suggests we invite them into formative relationships where the ideas and desires that perpetuate a non-confrontational nature are slowly and gently challenged and changed.
There are myriad examples of heart-listening. Just listening to someone talk about money for five minutes usually reveals their ideas and desires. Money is one of the easiest Indicators to discern.
- Why is learning to listen to someone’s heart often difficult?
Ah, that’s a loaded question. Part of the answer comes from the current Christian tendency toward monologue rather than dialogue. We’re generally trained to receive information through sermons, podcasts, shows, and events – none of which requires us to work through or to wrestle with the information being provided.
This has impacted everything from evangelism to church architecture.
My guess is that the most impactful evangelists are the best heart listeners, not the best talkers.
A few years ago, I was walking into a major league baseball game, and a group of so-called “evangelists” were yelling at the entering crowds through bullhorns, telling us we were all damned to hell and quoting their best scriptures to prove it. I was both angry and embarrassed.
I can’t imagine anyone was “converted” that day, and I suspect the crowd slid more towards hell than heaven. But my guess is the evangelists went home, checked a box, and rested in the assurance that they had appropriately “shared the Gospel”, despite the fact that I didn’t see a single person engage in any sort of dialogue with the evangelists.
Many new churches are built to look and function like auditoriums or concert venues. The musicians and pastors are on stage, presenting information to a separate group – the audience – who receive it and then leave out the back door. Not many opportunities to practice heart-listening in that sort of environment.
Then there’s just the pace of modern life. If our days are constantly filled with activities, work, hobbies, and entertainment, and then we crash in bed at night exhausted, heart-listening won’t come very naturally to us. Heart-listening requires intentionality and energy, and some time to think.
I’ve been working on this particular habit for years, and I have a long, long way to go. What’s a great way to start? Practice at home. Start listening for Heartview Indicators from your spouse, your kids, or your close friends. See if you can pick up on a need, a hurt, or a doubt someone has, and gently ask meaningful, honoring questions that may lead to what lies beneath the surface. Practice asking “why” in some different ways.
Some people won’t accept our invitation – they won’t answer our “why” questions, they won’t engage us in a deeper relationship. That’s ok. Our role is to be inviting.
- Lastly, what’s said first is never what’s being said.
Every husband who has been through pre-marital counseling is taught this, though I’m not sure how many of us remember it. When my wife is upset, what she first tells me is that what’s making her upset isn’t what’s making her upset!
Years and years of Western education have not really helped our relationship skills. It’s based on responding to every asked question with an accurate answer and regurgitating pieces of information. That’s informational, and it has its place, but it’s not relational.
Remember, Jesus rarely answered a direct question, though He was uncannily good at listening to someone’s heart.
The Apologist
We’re so conditioned to answer asked questions with stock replies.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“How was your day?”
“Great.”
We assume the first thing said or the first question asked is actually the real statement or question. Most of the time – it isn’t!
Here’s one last example.
I really enjoy “Stump the Expert” videos.
A super smart apologist or academic type ventures out into the public, maybe to a park or a college campus, and invites students or others to ask their most challenging questions to try to defeat the expert’s arguments.
If our views match those of the apologist, we quietly celebrate when he or she “owns” or “destroys” the arguments of the opponent.
These types of videos are fun to watch, and I typically learn something from the banter between the questioner and the expert. When I watch Christian apologetic videos, though, I often get a little sad.
Because the question the person asks is not the question being asked.
I recently watched a video in which a young woman asked the apologist if she was going to hell because she didn’t believe in Jesus. She asked it with some measure of sarcasm – it was evident she was trying to goad the apologist. But it led to a healthy debate on the existence of hell, God’s holiness and love, and salvation. It was a good, productive discussion.
This is how most of these videos go – the apologist expertly answers the question that’s been asked.
I just wonder what would’ve happened if someone had asked the young woman why she was asking about hell? What about her story, about her experience with people and God, prompted her to ask the question? Many atheists are angry at a God that they don’t believe in. What in her story made her angry? Or maybe scared?
In responding directly to the first statement or question, we may miss an opportunity for heart-listening. To invite someone into a deeper truth, into an idea or desire that may need transforming. We do this from a position of compassion, service, and honor, understanding our interaction may cause a little tension. Some conflict. Some healthy confrontation.
That’s okay. That’s the way Jesus did it.
[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ro 8:28). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.
[2] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ro 8:30). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.
[3] Foster, R. (2018). Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (TOC). Harper One.
[4] Willard, D. (1988). The Spirit of Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (p 158). HarperCollins.
[5] https://www.sandler.com/blog/ask-why-five-times/
