“To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”
― Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”
― Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith
“We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.
That is the unconsolable heartburn, the lifelong disquietude of having been made in the image of God.”
―
That is the unconsolable heartburn, the lifelong disquietude of having been made in the image of God.”
―
“It cannot be said too often that in the New Testament, the opposite of sin is not virtue, it is faith.”
― Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus
― Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus
“In the Bible, the opposite of Sin, with a capital 'S,' is not virtue - it's faith: faith in a God who draws all to himself in his resurrection.”
― Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
― Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”
― Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
― Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Justin Bryeans’s 2025 Year in Books
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