Bible Reading: Proverbs 18:13
When someone else is speaking we often know what that person is going to say before he or she finishes his or her sentence. That’s because our brains put words
together in patterns that we have heard before so we can quickly access them and plug them into conversation when we need them. This “autopilot” in our brains helps conversations to flow smoothly.
Proverbs 18:13 says, “He who answers before listening – that is his folly and his shame.” If we allow our brains to automatically plug in words to finish another person’s thoughts every time someone is speaking, we may fill-in-the-blank with the wrong ending. Sometimes our brain’s autopilot steers us in the wrong direction. We think we know what a person said, but because we let our brain automatically fill in the end of the person’s thought, we didn’t really listen to the speaker. This happens a lot, especially if the person speaking says something unexpected or unpleasant. We plug in the words that we want to hear in order to avoid hearing something unpleasant.
According to Solomon in Proverbs, listening with our autopilot on and answering without really knowing what was said makes us a fool.
Do you really listen, or are you a fool?
“It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the song of fools.” Ecclesiastes 7:5
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to listen and think before I act. In Jesus’ name. Amen.