The other day, somebody shared a quote their grandfather had given them on his deathbed. Knowing he was on his last leg of life, she asked him if he’d be willing to share any wisdom or advice before he went. He took out a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down:
“Listen first – then respond in the other person’s best interest – loving them with all of your heart.”
The quote caught me off guard; not because it’s easy, feel-good or funny, but because it’s one of the most difficult – and true – statements I’ve heard in my entire life.
How different would the world be if people actually followed this wisdom?
How different would my life be?
Yours?
Ours?
In some ways, I think these words are a working example of “Treat others the way you want to be treated” (Jesus); they’re just fleshed out a bit more and painted in the context of conversation.
Nothing good ever comes when you act out from a position of jealousy, anger, resentment or bitterness – any more than you can get clean drinking water from a dirty well; it simply isn’t possible. However, just because water is contaminated with dirty bits of earth from the well it resided in, doesn’t mean it can’t be filtered out to become drinkable.
Read that again. I needed to.
Filtering dirty water brings us back to the quote I started this blog with:
“Listen first – then respond in the other person’s best interest – loving them with all of your heart.”
Responding is very different than reacting.
Reacting is akin to swinging immediately when somebody serves you a rock on the tennis court; when you swing to hit it back to them, it breaks your racquet in the process and the game can no longer be played.
It’s worth noting that in tennis, “love’ is the word used to signify that somebody doesn’t have any points. E.g. “14 – love” is called out before serving the ball.
Responding is akin to catching the rock and replacing it with a tennis ball, before tossing it back and saying:
“Let’s try that again.”
It isn’t easy to notice when a rock is coming your way. It can trigger a ‘fight or flight’ reaction to see a stone headed straight for your face.
Sometimes catching the rock gives you a bloody hand. Jesus had two.
Some people don’t realize that tennis racquets aren’t made for hitting rocks. Atlas is one of them… Other people were never taught how to serve properly or lacked a can of tennis balls to serve with – because their parents gave them rocks instead of tennis balls when they walked onto the court of life.
Read that one again. I had to.
In fact, I had to read this entire blog again.
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