Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.

Some friends invited me to lunch at their house yesterday. There were a lot of people there I hadn't met before. A friend introduced me to this person, told me his name and we shook hands. I said "So nice to meet you 'so and so'." I say 'so and so' because I literally repeated his name back but was not listening at all. I was so wrapped up in everything going on around me, I could not remember what he had told me his name was just 20 seconds earlier!

About an hour later I left, was driving in my car on my way to the bookstore and talking to my mom on my cell phone. I asked her a question, she began to answer, and before she could even get the answer out I would interrupt with another question that was completely unrelated. This went on for about 5 minutes before she finally said “Can we get back to your first question?”

I am feeling especially convicted by my behavior yesterday. Aside from being rude, it got me thinking. If I listen this attentively to friends and family who are physically with me, how well do I listen to what God is trying to tell to me through His Holy Spirit? Am I stopping or even slowing down to listen to what He is saying back to me? There are some days I feel like I am in a constant conversation with God, but so often it's this one-sided dialogue because I never shut up long enough to hear what He wants to say! Some times I’m not even focused on what I’ve just asked Him!

God desires a relationship with us. Have you ever been in a relationship or had a friendship with someone and you felt like all they did was talk about themselves? I have, and it drove me nuts...I imagine God feels the same way.

"Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance." Proverbs 1:5