RIGHT VS REAL: Jesus Listening
There is only one kind of listening that builds a bridge.
Angry parents enter my office (I am the principal). I have the details in advance and their child is genuinely in the wrong but the relationships between parents, teacher and student are clearly broken.
My choices? Cut off the parents early on in the conversation, stake out our rightness, impose consequences and let them be on their way.
Or...giving up my right position: allowing the parents complete freedom (minus profanity) to give me every detail of their view, receiving their very real anger, and listening carefully to how their thinking took them to their position. I do not interrupt, I do not fashion retorts in my head, I do my best to go completely to their "side" and view it from there.
The most amazing thing happens: when I join them on their side for those few precious minutes by listening in compassionate silence to their hurt and their thinking, they begin to trust me. In that new-formed trust, I have the privilege to pray for wisdom. Then, when their emotions are spent and they are waiting on my response, I honor them by truly understanding how they got "there" and offering ways to get to a solution that addresses the offense but makes the new "team" that of parents and teacher wanting what's right for the child.
Isn't this Jesus Listening? After all, He's always right but listens to our full range of emotions and arguments--in fact, encouraging that deep level of engagement with Him. When He fully listens, no matter how wrong we may be, we trust His love and best interest for us, and may even move toward His rightness.
The bridge is the solution, and it is only built one way...through trust earned by Jesus Listening.
