THERE is sometimes a reason people cannot
hear us when we want to be listened to; when we just have to be heard.
Sometimes we have exhausted all their energy and we have consumed all their
goodwill. They could be our best friend, our spouse, one of our children, a
parent, a boss, or a subordinate. But when we have gone over and over and over
again on an issue – as they finally tire of our complaints – then we will hear
what will be a stern discouragement: but it’s a rebuke we need!
I have found my wife this way when she has
become completely worn of my complaints. There is no empathy left. I’m left
thinking, “You heartless wife!” When, in all truth-inspired reality, I’ve been the one to exhaust her
upon my insistence to travel that well-worn and foot-beaten track of selfish
pride. I’m deluded, of course, and she will patiently wait for God to catch up
with me.
Rarely do I stride willingly into a place of
derision against God – where God will say, “You
shall never enter my rest” (Psalm 95:8-11) – but I do, by my words and
actions, occasionally get tempted and somewhat seduced.
One place where empathy just does not fit is
in the presence of self-pity born of pride.
Opening Their Ears Again
There is a way we can be listened to; a way
we can be reasonably heard.
We step down from the podium of pride and we
take on the armour of a servant willing to serve the person we come to speak
with. Relationships cannot subsist on a one way flow – one always giving, the
other seeking to be received all the time. It’s just unsustainable.
Opening the ears of those who once cared but
now perhaps don’t at the moment is about repentance – acknowledging the
source of our self-pity (fear, envy, jealousy, anger, etc) – that self-pity
was there and it was taking us to death.
Repentance works!
People cannot help but turn back to us when
we have acknowledged the truth – that we did wrong – we abused their goodness
and grace – and we now wished we hadn’t.
***
One place empathy just doesn’t fit is in the
presence of self-pity born of pride. How can someone continue to support us
when we are so completely and so conceitedly full of ourselves? But when we
acknowledge our wrong, repenting of it, it is amazing just how caring the one
who used to care becomes.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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