One of the quiet temptations of faith, especially for those of us who care deeply about truth, is the need to arrive at agreement before we feel at peace.
We listen with one ear open and the other already forming a response.
We nod politely while mentally preparing our rebuttal. We are present just long enough to decide where we stand. In other words, we listen to reply rather than seeking to understand before being understood. Listening like that isn’t really listening. It’s waiting.
Over the course of my lifetime and through years of ministry, being the boss in a variety of settings, and through having the conversations with people whose beliefs differ sharply from my own, I’ve learned something slower and more demanding: It is possible to listen without needing to agree. Sometimes, that type of listening is the most faithful thing we can offer.
Listening Is Not Surrender
Let’s be clear: listening does not mean abandoning our conviction. Listening does not require that we compromise our theology or get swept off in a decadent moral drift. It does not mean every belief is equally true or every path equally life-giving. Just because someone says it doesn’t make it so.
What it does mean is this: I am willing to encounter you before I evaluate your ideas. That posture alone changes the aura in the room.
Scripture reminds us, “My dear brothers and sisters, always be willing to listen and slow to speak. Do not become angry easily, (James 1:19, NCV)
Notice the order. Listening comes first; not agreement, not correction, not clarity. Listening.
The Difference Between Hearing and Holding
I can hold my faith firmly and still hold your story gently. I can also believe something to be true without needing to win in the moment. I trust that God is not threatened by honest difference.
Jesus did this constantly.
He listened to people whose lives contradicted His teaching. He asked questions He already knew the answers to. He allowed stories to unfold without rushing to conclusions.
Listening, for Jesus, was not weakness.
It was strength demonstrated under restraint.
What I’ve Learned from Other Faiths (and from Silence)
Some of the most formative moments of my spiritual life have not come from sermons or Bible study. They come from sitting quietly with people whose practices and beliefs are not my own, like “Stevie,” a sixty year old man who identifies as a trans and shared with me that he didn’t feel whole until he put on a dress. “Stevie” will tell you he loves Jesus and attends a weekly church service in Deep Ellum, a historic Dallas neighborhood. When we met, he didn’t need me to fix him. He needed me to listen.
In these types of moments, God has taught me:
- That reverence can exist without shared language
- That suffering creates a common grammar
- That silence often communicates what arguments cannot
I remain a Christian. But, I become a guest when I step into another’s sacred space.
And guests listen.
Why This Matters Right Now
We live in a world that rewards reaction more than reflection. Where certainty is confused with faithfulness.
Where disagreement quickly becomes dismissal…if not all out war.
True presence requires something else.
It asks us:
- Can I stay without needing to resolve?
- Can I listen without needing to have the final word?
- Do I believe God is at work beyond my understanding?
Sometimes the most Christlike response is not proclamation, but attention.
A Gentle Practice
The next time you’re in a conversation where you feel the urge to correct or convince, try praying this short prayer instead:
“Lord, help me listen for what is human before I listen for what is wrong.”
You may still disagree.
You may still hold your convictions.
But something holy happens when listening becomes an act of love rather than a strategy for victory.
That is where real ministry begins.
Until my next post…
Be salty, stay lit.
Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™
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The Devotional Guy™ 
Brother, I am happy that these words struck a chord with you and that you find them useful. And that adage is so, so true. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, David, on this frosty morning.
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This is such helpful and much needed advice, brother. Seeing people first, before evaluating their ideas, is paramount. Your post reminds me of the familiar adage, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
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