Learning to listen — really listen — is key
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Editorial: A reminder to ‘weep with those who weep’
For months now, our hearts have felt troubled. We’ve watched as Christians on social media have erupted in angry, hateful, hurtful words time and time again.
As we watch, a voice has echoed in our minds, asking, “Where’s the kindness? Where’s the empathy? Where’s the love of Jesus?”
Friends, some of our brothers and sisters are weeping, loudly, and too many Christians are ignoring those cries.
Black friends have shared their hurt. Asian American friends have shared their hurt. Friends who have suffered from COVID-19 or lost a loved one to COVID-19 have shared their hurt. All while more voices yell over them, disregarding their stories and their experiences.
“Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep,” the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:15 (New Living Translation), adding in the next verse, “Live in harmony with each other.”
Friends, some of our brothers and sisters are weeping, loudly, and too many Christians are ignoring those cries.
Harmony seems far from our reality. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.
Let us, as Christians, take time to listen. Let us sit with those who are hurting.
Related: Learning to listen — really listen — is key
Let us not be like Job’s friends, who with their words caused more harm. Let us learn how to be present with those who are weeping and how to truly hear the cries of their heart. Let us hold our tongues (or maybe the fingers with which we type).
Let us pray for God to give us the strength and wisdom to know when to speak and when to simply be present.
Let us truly examine ourselves, our opinions and our biases. Let us choose not to hold those things more highly than the brothers and sisters who are asking that their pain be acknowledged.
We must stop pointing fingers and start choosing to weep with those who are weeping.
It’s true: Your life has likely held struggles. You, too, have pain. We’ve all walked through valleys, some that feel deeper than others. However, acknowledging someone else’s hurt doesn’t mean you cannot continue to work through your own.
This is not asking you to do something you feel is illegal or something you feel violates your conscience. It’s simply an appeal for you to take a step back from your computer and your television, to look a real person in the face and to try to understand how that person has experienced this world, your community even, differently from you.
We must stop listening to the voices that scream at us on social media or on our favorite cable channel. We must stop listening to those who make millions by sowing discord among us.
We must stop pointing fingers and start choosing to weep with those who are weeping.
It starts in our communities, our churches. By learning to sit with each other through pain, we can also learn how to truly live in harmony with one another. — Chellie Ison, for the Editorial Board
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