"Uncomfortable to Listen To"
EPISODE 207
Care Enough to Listen
How can we give our friendships a boost by lending an ear? Where did Eli go wrong and where did he get it right with Hannah? And what’s the deal with those brackets around John 7:53-8:11 in modern Bibles? Session 5 of the Two By Two study focuses on listening as a core friendship trait. We look at the story of a woman caught in adultery and one about a woman accused of drunkenness. In both, we notice the value of waiting to speak. Find more of this study — like videos and study guides — at biblegeeks.fm/twobytwo. And as always, thanks for … listening!
Takeaways
The Big Idea: Listening is one of the purest expressions of love and connection.
This Week's Challenge: Focus your conversations this week on asking good questions and listening to the answers.
Episode Transcription
Oh, man. That was just so uncomfortable to listen to. [LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bible Geeks podcast. This is episode 207. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in. We are on the heels of our bracket and our results episode that we had on the last conversation, getting back into a discussion about friendship here in our two-by-two guided study. We're in session five. And after we got done a couple episodes ago talking about love and the need for compassion in friendship, now we're going to be talking about listening. And while I've been talking here this whole time, I've not been allowing my co-host to talk at all. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about that in just a few minutes. Did you say something? I was in the Bahamas. [LAUGHS] And if you don't know what we're talking about, that leads us into our conversation starter here on the episode and that one we aptly called The Bahamas. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is two-by-two. The Bahamas. There's an old Steve Martin bit where he plays an absent-minded waiter. As he takes a couple's order, he slowly drifts into a happy daydream. Sorry, he says. I just went to the Bahamas. I wish I could say I've never gone to the Bahamas while someone spoke to me. But good listening requires more than just paying attention. Everyone needs a circle of friends who care what you're thinking, what you're going through, and what you have to say. So here's the big idea. Listening is one of the purest expressions of love and connection. A friendship is like a conversation in its give and take. Do you listen like you're genuinely concerned? Becoming quick to listen and slow to speak can take a lifetime of work. But it rewards you with stronger relationships as people realize they matter to you. The poet John Fox writes, "When someone deeply listens to you, it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold, fresh water. When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touches your skin, you are loved." Job's three friends had long speeches for him, but he wanted someone to hear him. "Oh, that you would keep silent," he said, asking them, "Listen to the pleadings of my lips." Later, he sadly told them, "Miserable comforters are you all. Shall windy words have an end?" Try to understand what someone else is saying before you tell them your take. You don't have to agree with everything someone says, but listening shows your regard for a person and their thoughts. Fools think they're always right and love sharing their opinions, but wise people listen to other perspectives, recognizing thinking partners as one of the great blessings of friendship. So here's the big question. How can you get more curious about a friend's world? So follow along with this guided study of biblegeeks.fm/twobytwo, and may the Lord bless you and keep you to Pentecost. Shalom. So the big idea in that conversation starter was that listening is one of the purest expressions of love and connection, and I think that's so true. I listen to a few other podcasts here besides our own, and there are some times in podcasts that I listen to that are just unbearable. When the two hosts or maybe even three hosts are talking over each other, they're interrupting each other, it's impossible for one person to get an entire sentence out, and it just reminds me so much of the need to respect each other by letting other people finish a sentence. Listening is the best way to get somebody to express themselves, and listening is the way that somebody can share what's on their mind. That's not going to happen, though, if you're always talking over people and interrupting people, and in a friendship, interrupting people is not a good way to express your love and connection for them. People don't like that? Okay. I don't think so. You learn something every day. Yeah, so the big question we talked about was how can you get more curious about a friend's world, and I think this has its roots in something you talked about a few weeks ago about your goal of being the most curious person in the room, trademark Bryan Schiele. And I think this idea of another world inside each person, kind of a cool, helpful way to access that curiosity. We're all explorers by nature, at least I am. I think a lot of people are, you know, you just want to go and explore and find new things to learn, and if you perceive that there's a whole world inside another person, this new world to discover and map within them, I think it brings out your inner Lewis and Clark or Magellan, Captain Picard, whoever, you know, like you want to go learn. I boldly go where no one has gone before. Bryan's brain, this is dangerous. But, you know, like I remember as like a four or five-year-old, you know, those early like, whoa, moments where you're blown away when I realized that everyone around me has a whole thing that they're experiencing just like I'm experiencing all of my own thoughts. And it's one of those mind-blowing moments that hopefully never gets away from us that we've probably all had where you start to realize, I need to get interested in what's going on with them and not just be so stuck in what's going on with me. It is absolutely the case. I think of the iceberg, right? It's like you see just a little bit of what's on the tip, and you don't even realize that there's a whole big giant thing going on under the surface. And I think that what we talked about, about marriage in our last conversation, you get to know your spouse very well. You get to know them under the surface better than pretty much anyone else will probably. But you start to see that if you know that about them, well, that must be the case for everyone else around you. And thinking about that explorer by nature kind of thing is a cool way to view other people, especially in our friendships. So let's get into our icebreaker question here. And this week we're going to ask this question, "Are you ever guilty of the friendship filibuster?" I love this phrase. I love this thought. Because I am absolutely guilty of this, but I'll give you a turn to talk about your guilt as well, Ryan. Well, I think anybody who's ever listens to this show will have no trouble believing that, yes, I am guilty of the friendship filibuster. And I think it's telling that whenever Adrian and I are really working through something, we actually use a one-minute timer to keep things going back and forth, and both of us have a tendency to filibuster sometimes when we really get on a roll. So, yeah, absolutely. That was a long answer to a question about filibusters. How about you? Guilty. Is that the shortest answer? Can we move on now? You nailed it. Yeah, totally guilty of this. I find that for whatever reason, after a while I just keep talking and talking and talking, and I'm sure everyone else is zoned out at that point. And so knowing that our audience may also be zoning out around this point, let's move on to our first segment. And that is Like the Teacher. We're going to get into something that Jesus shows us and how to be a better listener. We're going to go to John chapter 8 verses 1 to 11. And speaking of the friendship filibuster, Ryan has some caveats and asterisks that I think rightly should be said about John 8 verses 1 to 11 that will probably lead in to this conversation about Jesus and his example about friendship and listening. Yeah, well, you put three asterisks here next to John 8, 1 to 11, and I think that's appropriate. Briefly put, I think it's impossible to argue that this text was originally in John's gospel based on the textual evidence. I just don't think that I could honestly say that. I think it's an unusual situation. This particular passage is a rarity. It should place no doubt in anybody's mind about the remarkable clarity we have about the reliability of our New Testament manuscripts. That's always something that I worry about whenever somebody isn't familiar with textual criticism, that they might somehow start to think that the Bible is not solid. And just because this was in something that people were looking at in 1611 in those documents, we just keep getting more and more clarity and we have immense confidence. And that's why this is part of that clarity. That's why we know what we do about the New Testament and it's over 5000 amazing old manuscripts. But that might leave us with a different question of why we're talking about it here in a like the teacher segment. And I think I would want to admit that it's different than other solid texts whose apostolic and prophetic origin are certain. But this is certainly a very early story. It has echoes in early Christian writings and a lot of similarities to other stories in the other gospels. So all of this leads scholars to see this as an unusual but worthy text for reflecting on and looking closely at. And after explaining the evidence that it wasn't part of John's autograph, D.A. Carson says of this text, "On the other hand, there is little reason for doubting that the event here described occurred, even if in his written form it did not in the beginning belong to the canonical books." And Leon Morris adds, "But if we cannot feel that this is part of John's gospel, we can feel that the story is true to the character of Jesus throughout the history of the church. It has been held that whoever wrote it, this little story is authentic." And maybe that's enough said about the text and why we're going to talk about it. And this is, of course, the story about the Pharisees and people bringing Jesus, this woman who had been caught in the act of adultery and placing her in their midst and saying in the law, we're supposed to stone her. What do you say we should do? And he's drawing in the ground and he says, "Let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." And everybody leaves. And Jesus says, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" And she says, "No one, Lord." And then Jesus says, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on sin no more." So, Bryan, when you look at these words and this famous story, what do you take from it? First of all, I just have to say I find it so entertaining how this story is about Jesus saying few words and how many words have been written about this story. It's so entertaining. I know, seriously, that the textual criticisms are clear. But as we get into thinking about the story, with so few words and a little bit of arts and crafts on the ground, Jesus was able to calm this great uprising of people here in John chapter 8. Now, if this is a true story of something that happened to Jesus, here we're seeing that Jesus was starting to employ something in his teaching that I have started employing in my class teaching. And that is just asking a question and letting it hang in the room, embracing the awkward silence. There is something so powerful to just being quiet and letting the room sit with a question or just sit waiting for somebody to answer the question. For so many of us, we want to get out there and we want to just be the ones trying to download information into somebody's brain. And we just need to do that by bucket brigading words over and over again into somebody's face hole and trying to get them to see, "Here's what's happening." And at some point, though, it's an overload. At some point, the words are not actually where the power is. Sometimes the power is in the silence and in letting people process. And I think Jesus is showing us here a great example about letting people process. And as he's there on the ground and he's writing, he's being quiet, and they're just enthralled, like just really curious of what he's doing. His question comes just so simply and he just lets it sit. And they start to realize it starts to click that they're not any better. And they start to walk away. I just find this such a helpful example of just being quiet. And what a valuable tool this is in a friendship, right? Just to be OK, sitting quietly with somebody, maybe contemplating something, maybe waiting for them to say something. And if we're always the type A extroverts who are trying to take over the room, it can be a real challenge for other people to open up and for us to be really good listeners in a friendship. So there's a lot to be said here. And I think whether this story was or wasn't in the original canon, OK, but you could totally see Jesus doing this. And I think it's a valuable lesson for me just to stop and let other people sit. You know, and just to stop and sit in quiet moments. So I don't know. What about you? Yeah. Yeah. Textual issues aside, this is just one of my favorite stories of any kind anywhere. I love it so much. It is convicting. It's reassuring. It does, as Leon Morris said, ring so true to the character of Jesus as we see him in all the other stories of the Gospels. You can definitely see that Jesus that we see depicted everywhere doing this and the cleverness intersecting with the compassion, the detail about his writing on the ground with his finger, which is symbolic and mysterious. What is he writing? What's going on? There's all kinds of theories. The final moment with only, you know, these two people left, Jesus and the woman, everybody's stone by stone. They have dropped to the ground and people have deserted while Jesus is writing something in the ground. And he looks up, hey, where'd they all go? Is there anybody left? It's just us, huh? This woman has been evidently ripped from the act of adultery and dragged before the Lord. And here she stands as vulnerable and broken as a person could be, right? As guilty as, as, you know, humbled as her life. She could, this could have been the end of her life, you know? I mean, this was the moment that she had. And that last sentence that Jesus says captures everything. Neither do I condemn you like mercy in the face of obvious guilt. And then go and sin no more. Mercy is not enabling sin. It's not excusing sin. It's a second chance at repentance and obedience. And so the just the confluence of all of these things in this moment is really it's just a magnificent story. And I think there's plenty of reasons to believe that this perhaps really did happen and is an early story, just not one of John's. And someone felt it needed to go in the book. Yeah, I think this whole story here is just amazing. And I really appreciate that we were able to talk through some of these things, even though there's a lot of caveats and asterisks. And you know what there is not caveats and asterisks about is our next segment. And that is here's the story. Here's the story. So we're jumping all the way back to first Samuel chapter one verses three through twenty, where we're going to look at the story of how Eli jumps to conclusions. Oh, Eli, come on now. So the back story here is that there's this man, Alcana, with two wives and one is bearing him children, Penena, and one is barren. And that's Hannah. And you recognize the name and she's going to become famous and the most famous part of this story. And there's a reason for that. So every year go into the tabernacle to worship and eat before the Lord. This is probably like the peace offerings. Alcana would give Penena a portion for each of her kids, you know, as they're doling out the different portions from the sacrifices. But Hannah only had herself. So she only got the one portion, except that in his love for her, he gave her two portions. But you know how special treatment sometimes backfires? Oh, yeah, it's just drawing attention to what you don't want to draw attention to. It probably only, you know, just made her more aware and brought visibility to her shame and just made these trips to Shiloh where the tabernacle was miserable. But there's a commentator that I really like on these historical books in the Old Testament. His name is Dale Ralph Davis. And he tells this like fictionalized version of how these meals might have gone. So I just want to share this quote and it's like a just imagine it acting out. There they are in the tent having this feast. And Penena says, Now, do all you children have your food? Dear me, there are so many of you. It's hard to keep track. Mommy, Miss Hannah doesn't have any children. What did you say, dear? I said Miss Hannah doesn't have any children. Miss Hannah. Oh, yes, that's right. She doesn't have any children. Doesn't she want children? Oh, yes, she wants children very much. Wouldn't you say so, Hannah? In a low aside, don't you wish you had children, too? Doesn't daddy want Miss Hannah to have kids? Oh, certainly he does. But Miss Hannah keeps disappointing him. She just can't have kids. Why not? Why? Because God won't let her. Does God not like Miss Hannah? Well, I don't know. What do you think? Oh, by the way, Hannah, did I tell you that I'm pregnant again? Think you'll ever be pregnant, Hannah. And so, you know, this is fictional. But this, you know, you could just imagine the wounds as it says that this other wife keeps mocking and tormenting Hannah about this issue that she can't do anything about. And she's at this feast. And that leads us into her sadness in verses nine to thirteen. Oh, man, that was just so uncomfortable to listen to. Oh, yeah. So the story continues in verses nine through thirteen where Hannah, she's beside herself, of course, for all the reasons that you can imagine. She goes out and she goes to sit by herself in the temple. After everybody had eaten and drunk, she is out there just bawling her eyes out. She's praying. She's making promises to God. All she wants is a child. All she wants is a son. And so she asks God to give her a son. And in exchange for that blessing, she says that she's going to dedicate the boy to God. She's going to commit him to serve under the Nazarite vow. He's not going to have his head shaven or have his hair cut at all. But far off, we see Eli. And Eli is watching this scene unfold. He sees that there's this woman over there and she's crying. And apparently she's talking to herself and he can't hear her words. But all he can see is how just distressed and deeply emotional she is. And so his first thought is that, well, she's drunk. He jumps to this conclusion thinking that there's something going on. And he just doesn't know all the details, but he sure thinks he does. And so he's got some ideas about what's going on that are totally off base. And that's where we move into the next part of the story in verses 14 to 18. And he's probably seen a lot of people drunk outside of a feast. And he just rebukes her. He tells her as a righteous, maybe self-righteous representative here of God, don't be such a sloppy drunk. And she says, no, it's not wine I've been pouring. I'm pouring out my heart, my soul before God. And she says, I've been speaking my vexation. I like that word, too. I've been vexed. And he does something really great here. Eli deservedly, in some cases, gets a hard time. He wasn't half the parent that Hannah was, and he had some flaws, but he blesses her here, which is something that priests were told to do as God's representatives, right? Back in number six to give that priestly blessing, kind of a version of which you close every show with. And here he blesses her. He says, go in peace. And the God of Israel, grant your petition that you have made to him. And then she does something even better, even more wonderful, I think. She believes the blessing. She believes that God will answer the prayer. And she stops being sad. She just like cleans up her face and goes in and she's not sad anymore. She's been sad for how long? And this affirmation by one of God's representatives, a priest here, brings her this confidence in God and this faith that God is going to take care of her. And so they get up early after this conversation. They get up early. They go to worship and they well, Hannah and her husband have some alone time, dot, dot, dot, the Bible words for knowing each other, moving right along. At which point God remembered Hannah, it says, such a fun way, such a fun phrase that's used here for what God did for Hannah, how he remembered her. He heard her words and he brought these words to mind in that moment. And fast forward nine months, Samuel is born and his name, meaning I have asked for him from the Lord. And so just a cool little story here about how Hannah is asking for a son, pouring her heart out before the Lord and how Eli just jumps to some silly conclusions here. But what do we see from this story about listening about friendship? I think there's some cool things to pull out. What did you get? I was thinking about how it's easy to feel defined by some aspect of your life that you're not proud of a lot of times. In this case, Hannah felt her barrenness chasing her everywhere she went. She couldn't do anything about it. But Panana mocked her and Elkina loved her, but he probably also pitied her in her time. It would have felt like she was failing at something fundamental to her role as a wife. But when we're humbled, we're in that sweet spot in that prime spot for God to show himself, which is really what her prayer in the next chapter is going to be all about, about God taking the low and making them high and this kind of flipping this reversal that the Lord brings. And that's why I love Eli's course correction here. And, you know, he did jump to a conclusion and we're making a point about him doing that. But he also switched it up. You know, he saw her so poorly, but then he heard her out and saw the woman she was and he blessed her and he stamped her request with his own endorsement. You know, he asked for her prayer to be granted. And as the priest, that meant a lot to Hannah. And that moment, that combination of her prayer and that interaction changed her whole outlook. And I just think it's really cool. And it's a testimony to the two different ways we can affect people by the way we see and hear them. I think the difference here that we see in this story is that when Eli finally connects with her, he goes from that moment where he's just misunderstood to where he revisits his previous assumptions. And I think that's such a powerful transition in this story that Eli is willing to say, you know what? I don't know everything. I came to the wrong conclusion. And instead of thinking you're just a sloppy drunk, I'm going to realize that you are one of the holiest women I have ever met in my life. Right? Like being so willing to say, I'm trying to solve the wrong problem or I'm coming to this with faulty information and using what conclusions we jumped to as a launchpad into thinking even better and more clearly. I think it's such a helpful reminder in friendship. You can misunderstand. You can jump to conclusions. You can pity somebody from afar. But unless you're willing to stop and listen, unless you're willing to have your preconceived ideas blown out of the water by the truth, I don't think you're ever going to make a sincere connection with somebody. And your relationships in these friendships are only going to be surface level. And unless you're willing to get deep, unless you're willing to move past the things that you've jumped to. So I don't know. I feel like this story is such a helpful reminder for me that what I think on the surface, what I think as my first thought about somebody is probably not true at all. And I just need to keep digging. Yeah. I mean, your preconceptions, I think you described it well. Just like the words of someone else can just bounce off of them and never get through. Sometimes we talk about people having a thick skull. Things are just not coming through to reach you. And communication, part of communication is expressing what needs to be said. But the other side is reception. You have to be receiving what is being put out there. The Bible has a lot to say, especially about receiving, about listening to what God has to say. But it also talks about us, as we've seen and as our conversation starter brought up, about us listening to others. And we need to be able to see past what is right in front of us. Our own viewpoint can't be like a blinder that's blocking everything. So I like what you said there about whenever he heard, he could then start to assess the right problem. Yeah. You know, like I jump into solving my wife's problems sometimes without her ever feeling like I heard her problems. No doubt. And, you know, it's just important to slow down, make sure that that connection, that reception has happened, make sure that, you know, sometimes the problem you're there to solve is just hearing. And whenever a person feels heard and understood, that sort of starts to solve some things. And then sometimes they want you to be a thinking partner with them or to help them work through it. But I like that idea of solve the right problem. Don't jump into what you think it might be without hearing. All right. So I think that wraps up our conversation about Hannah's story. Let's move into our next segment here on the episode. And that is our Reach Out question. OK, the Reach Out question is how has poor listening impacted your friendships? And then there's a bonus question. And how does it change when someone listens well? There's sort of two sides of this, Bryan. How does the bad listening affect you? And how does the good listening change those relationships? I'm sorry. What did you say? I was in the Bahamas. No, I think feeling like somebody hears you and acts on your behalf without having to specify everything for them is huge. When you really think about sort of the positive side of this, like what's the ideal, right? The ideal is for somebody to just know what you want and know what's going on with you without you ever having to have a conversation with them about it. Like that connection, that deep, just knowing each other kind of relationship that you have in a friendship, maybe just with a word, maybe with a nod or just some way of indicating to somebody that something's going on and they get it. Like they get you. That's such a huge thing that we all want to aspire to. I really want to aspire to. But I can remember a handful of times where that was not the case, where I've walked away from interactions with people with just like this whole confusion over like, why didn't they understand my intentions? Like I hear I was going into the situation, trying to accomplish this and trying to express that. But they thought I was saying something else. You know, it's just so frustrating when you're trying to express yourself to somebody and they don't hear you or they don't see what's going on or they, you know, you find out later on that they were asking questions or they were questioning your commitment to something or whatever. And it's, I don't know. I feel like people not understanding my intentions are, you know, one of the biggest frustration points in a friendship. And what's the quote that you want to judge people by their actions, but you want people to judge you by your intentions. And I feel like for me, when somebody has heard me, they judged my intentions, right? They're knowing what I intended, even though if I didn't actually say it the right way or I didn't express it completely clearly, like it wasn't about my actions. They just, they knew what I was trying to get at because they were being observant. They were being perceptive. And I think observation and perception are really tightly tied to listening, you know, just seeing what's under the surface, trying to dig a little bit deeper. It goes back to our conversation about love on the last conversation, right? Like 1 Corinthians 13 about, you know, love not jumping to these kinds of conclusions where we think that it's all about somebody doing something wrong. Well, it's that's not it. We believe all things. We're willing to see that somebody is is trying to do the right thing, even though if on the surface it doesn't appear like it. So I don't know. I think you ever gotten in these moments where, like, you want to write a 10,000 word email explaining yourself to somebody? Yes. Yeah, I just like every moment that I've had like that, where it's like, OK, I need to tell you everything that you don't know about the situation because I don't feel like you really heard me or listened to me. On the other hand, when you have somebody in your life who listens well and you don't even have to say a word, let alone 10,000 words in an email, somebody who can advocate for you, somebody who sees your intentions rather than just your actions. It's just the most amazing feeling in the world. So, yes, I have absolutely been impacted by that myself. And it is a really helpful reminder in this reach out discussion question for me to extend that to other people and giving people the benefit of the doubt, not jumping to conclusions, trying to put all the evidence together and see that maybe there's something that I haven't seen clearly about someone situation. Maybe there's something I need to know that I don't currently know to ask more questions to be a better listener. When I look at my own experience, I can see the value of that on the flip side. Yeah, being misunderstood is the opposite side of all of this. That's so hard. And I mean, it can make you feel crazy because you're like, how did we get here? And I know I didn't make this up. But what is going on? And, you know, and just like you do, I like your example. You do want to write a 10. I've probably written a 10,000 word email to you before. OK, I just I know this isn't a big deal, but I just want to clarify. Here's where I was coming from there. Here's what's going on. And you're just trying to kind of get, you know, we talk about being on the same page, be, you know, alignment and understanding and that sense that we are jiving, you know, and whenever you don't feel that, that's one level is like you just you feel misunderstood. Another would be like just somebody has no room for anybody's thoughts, but their own. And that's just a hard. That's a hard job to be a friend to that kind of person at any deeper level. It doesn't mean you're not going to care about them or show up for them, but there's like a limit because you just learn over time. You know, you make so many attempts in and you just feel this lack of reciprocity. And so you just know, OK, that's what that's going to be. And that impacts the friendship. On the other hand, there's like this other level when you someone is not just making space for you to share your thoughts, but they're really invested. And like you have been talking about, they're curious, they're interested, they want to get into what you're getting, what you're trying to express. And then they show up to it's not just one sided, but the listening leads to this new kind of level of dialogue. And you are navigating and creating new ground. There you go into explorer territory again, but you're creating new a new pathway by listening to each other and what each other is saying. And that is really special because then you have this sense of the two different worlds. And it's it makes it I mean, that's the heart of friendship that is this is another this is an extension of that heart of friendship episode because this is part of loving your neighbor as yourself. Listening is an act of love. And I mean, there have been times when I have particularly made the intention of like I got to step up my listening to, you know, people in the church and people around me, people at work, whatever. And just like immediately saw this shift like a sea change in the depth of the conversations in the connections. And then there have been times where I have totally been unintentional about that and lost in other goals and you know, realized eventually what I had let slip and that I've been an awful listener. And I'm just, you know, so lost in my thoughts and that kind of thing. And so it's something that I just I've said this before. I don't think you ever master this. I don't think you ever really level up. You just either are bringing intentionality to it and being purposeful in your listening in every conversation or you're not. And it's like each conversation is a new opportunity to do this or to totally lose your way on it. And so I just think you got to keep every time your kids come to you every time your spouse comes to you every time you go and are interacting with a stranger every time you're talking to a friend. Do you have to bring that that at least maybe I should say I have to bring that thoughtfulness and that intention or else it's easy for me to slip into lower quality listening than what I want to show up with. I feel like people who don't listen just aren't really great friends. If you could say something as simply as that right it's that kind of idea. You don't want to you don't want to connect with somebody who doesn't want to receive the things that you're putting out there. If they're only trying to download stuff into your brain then I mean where are you going to go with that relationship in the long run it's always going to be one sided it's always going to be somebody leeching your energy out into their own life and rather than giving anything back to you. But yeah when we see those relationships that are working that way it's such a blessing but I like what you said there about how it's an effort like it's an ongoing thing that you constantly bring yourself to. It's not that like a friendship will always be this and so I think maybe another thing to point out there is like if you see that a friendship that you're having with somebody is lacking in this way. Can you steer the ship into a direction that actually leads you to better listening and those 10,000 word emails or base camp messages or whatever that you've sent to me have been actually a great way for us to continue being good listeners for each other because sometimes we're really bad at it. You know me particularly you particularly from time to time you know both of us we can get to a point where like we're not listening to each other well but it's that reminder if both of us are on the same page that like this is what we want we know we're not always really good at it but let's remind ourselves from time to time. Okay I need you to hear me or like you know I am trying to hear you in this moment and it's like okay that at least shows that we're committed to those kinds of of conversations. Yeah it makes a difference it makes a difference like just saying okay I think I missed all of that. Can you hit me again with that you know like just being honest like I'm so sorry but I didn't understand what you were trying to say there could you say that a different way or whatever it is. I was in the Bahamas. All right so let's move on here in our conversation to our challenge for the week. I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. Okay so our challenge is to focus your conversations this week on asking good questions and listening. How about that to the answers and you know just make that your goal sometimes it's just a matter of we talk sometimes about what's the game what's how do you win the win this week is hearing people and asking good questions and just not even worrying too much about making sure that you're understood and I think that can make a difference. Oh 100% you know it's really funny how our kids are great at this you know what little kids do right like they ask you why a ton of times why yeah well why is that well why is this you know and tied to my trademarked the most curious person in the room thing that we were talking about earlier. There's a technique that's called the five wise and it's basically to do what little kids do is when you're presented with information ask why and then when you have an answer for that or the next part of the conversation moves on you ask why about that and you continue on. Why until you get to like you get to the smallest Russian doll that's nested inside of all the other ones right like you get to the nugget of the truth about something and I feel like if we just got more curious if we were just able to ask maybe not why but what or how or you know maybe these probing questions it helps us develop this listening and helps us to get to what is the actual problem at play here or you know what is really going on with somebody whatever the situation is. Just continuing to probe is helpful and doing that in a way that's listening and not talking and giving other people space we've said a lot here on the episode but I think you get the point why why I think this is so good I'm really excited to play with this week try to do it like in a way that's not annoying right exactly but try to keep you know going a little further with a different version of the why question I think that's an exciting question. I think that's an exciting thing to explore to you know create connections and really deepen a conversation and this conversation is I think coming to a close so let's close it out with a word of prayer and the prayer we had in the study guide for this week comes from James chapter one verse nineteen we said Lord help us to be quick to hear so let's go to God in prayer. Our great God as mighty and holy and wise and magnificent as you are we praise you that you incline your ear toward us to hear our thoughts and to hear our praise and our requests you are Elroy the God who sees what a gift to know you and to be known by you we pray that you would bless us as we try to incline our ears to you. We want to hear your word we want to see the truth you reveal and submit our lives to you we want to look in the mirror honestly and understand and we ask for insight and wisdom help us to relate with others skillfully and lovingly pray that you would empower us with your love humility and self control forgive us of our most self centered moments in the past and give us a holiness like yours we pray this in Jesus name Amen. Amen. All right, so on the next conversation, we're going to be in session six of this two by two guided study on friendship, and we'll be talking about safe spaces, I think this part of the conversation is where it really gets cool when you start to develop these friendships that are based on love and listening and that trust just starts to grow that connection that you have with somebody you have a circle of safety and and you've got that. And you've got this relationship with somebody or a small group of people that you just know they have your back and you have theirs and so to prepare for that conversation. We encourage you to read john 15 versus 12 to 17 and that great story about Jesus as the vine also john 21 versus 15 to 19 where Jesus has an interesting conversation with somebody who turned his back on Jesus. And then finally Proverbs 11 verse three and verse 13, some really helpful words of wisdom about being trustworthy. Yeah, we talk about loyalty as kind of the core of friendship right faithful friends, you know, and this is really where the character and the commitment of a person to you, you start to have confidence in that and that changes the whole dynamic when you know you can count on somebody is really cool like you said, being count on a bowl is a great phrase to sum up what we'll talk about on the next conversation. Thanks so much everyone for tuning into the Bible Geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm and you can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice or at Bible geeks.fm/207. You want to follow along with this guided study. We're right in the thick of it. It's at biblegeeks.fm/twobytwo a lot of links here in this close out. But if you go there to our website, you will find some helpful resources as you have these conversations with your small friend group. If you're currently doing that. So thanks everyone for tuning in and until the next episode, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom.