Listening: How To Stay Out Of Trouble

Listening: How To Stay Out Of Trouble

Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble. Proverbs 21:23

When my classmates and I made rounds in medical school, no one wanted to be asked a question he or she couldn’t answer—or worse, ask a question for which he or she should have known the answer. Either situation signaled to the attending physician that we hadn’t studied enough. It was like an open invitation for more questions we couldn’t answer. Our attending physician usually had a bunch of trick questions up his sleeve, and he couldn’t wait to pull them out if he thought we were unprepared.

Over time, I found that the best strategy was to look engaged and interested but remain silent. If I did that, I could usually make it through rounds without drawing attention from the attending physician. By listening more than talking, I also picked up pearls of wisdom that helped me later on. What I thought was a strategy to avoid unwanted attention turned out to be a prudent way to learn.

One day, we had a Christian professor visit who imparted the most important lesson we would ever learn in medical school: Be quiet and listen carefully to your patients. “If you’ll just listen,” he said, “they will tell you the diagnosis.”

To this day, I believe he was trying to teach us the same valuable lesson that today’s verse teaches. We need to stay calm and quiet. We need to listen before we speak.

After practicing medicine for so many years, I’ve learned that patients hang on every word a doctor says. Often they repeat back to me something I’ve said, but they say it with even more clarity and intensity. That makes it critically important for me to be careful and thoughtful with my speech.

Though I first learned the lesson in medical school, it doesn’t just apply to medicine. The wisdom of “listen first” applies to marriage, parenting, and other relationships. If we listen first, we will speak softly, calmly, and with the backing of wisdom.

TODAY’S RX

The next time you’re in a conversation, look the other person in the eye and listen first to what he or she has to say. When you speak, it will be with the wisdom of understanding.

Help me to remain quiet and have a listening ear, Father. I desire to understand those I’m in fellowship with and not speak over them or instruct them. Thank you for imparting your wisdom to me.