Listeners

June 29, 2006

Joel Akin

How well do you listen? Are you one of those who listens well or partly listens. Gossipers may be good listeners but they are better at speaking. They are speakers with sneakers for we share much and then are often horrified at the sneaker part. Finding friends who can keep quiet is not easy even when family takes the words of our mouth and blows them from proportion to emotional turmoil.

The why of why we share gossip is an interesting question. We speak of juicy gossip as the tidbits that we long to share with others. Its like getting revelation from God. Its unique and we want to find a way to make it meaningful and worthwhile for others. The only difference between what we share about others and we we share from God is in the measure of the heart and the quality of the news.

If spend my time searching for truth and then spending my time sharing partial truths then I do become a source of trouble for others and perhaps a source of hardship. Yet truth isn't always easy to ascertain. It takes time to listen and asking questions to get down to the full truth. There are few people who have that gift in fullness. If Search out truth then I know that eventually I will discover the truth I seek. It might take me part of life or my entire life but I will reach that goal.

But what if I discover the truth and learn that it only opens doors to partial truths? The things I dreaded? After all isn't our desire to find one single truth that will speak for all time? Isn't the desire of our heart to find that God is love and we don't need any other answer?

Yet the truth is there are reasons and purposes and seasons for everything under the sun. And we find that the simplest answers take weeks or months of prayer and asking to reduce it to the simplest components. And if I reduce knowledge to simple stories and think one story 'should' do it. I find that there are more things out there then meets the eye.

I can't do it alone. I can't find truth alone. I search for truth with all my heart and arrive at amazing conclusions only to realize that the journey towards truth had to be followed through by an amazing persistence on my part. And persistence is like patience, the things most of us don't really want to pray for.

Getting to the bottom of an answer is a struggle of time. And we know that time will be no more but time is still part of the equation. I know for example that tomorrow is my 48th birthday.

It represents the one year of my life I said I didn't want to see unless I had found someone by then. I had a believe going back probably to my 20's but probably my 30th birthday. I had gone to Michigan to write a biography on my deceased great uncle Fred Zaukelies in 1988. I had learned and knew previously that he didn't find anyone to marry until he was 49. So I told God if I didn't find anyone but that late a date I didn't want to marry at all. And I had said if I do find someone give me a full year or more cause the closer I got to 49 the more I knew that time would probably be pretty unkind to me. And I didn't want to deal with time of age and longing for romance in a body that just couldn't handle it anymore. Pain was too great and so was time. There was nothing there for me to bond too.

Yet to be honest I didn't really think the day would come without something happening. After all it was the one prayer of a lifetime that had been prayed with more certainty and tears then any other. Yet now I stand on the brink of hitting 48 and not one sign or hint of romance.

So how do I deal with this question and longing for answers? I didn't want God to throw away my dream I just didn't want anyone nor was it meant to be free for all. I wanted God to answer a prayer and not just a little one but one that measured out that one desire I could not make happen.

But it didn't happen and time has dragged me into a case of impossibilities. There is no answer that arrived. Either God wants me to wait until I'm 49 or God sets standards that are next to impossible to fulfill. How do I let go of God and his desire for me. By truth.

Anyways the door is open and there is away even if I cannot see it for the life of me. It might come tomorrow on my birthday. If that happens God can help me understand