I Thought I was a Good Listener Until the Timer Started

Seven Minutes That Changed How I Hear God in Others

I walked into that soul care training with quiet confidence. After all, theatre school had taught me to listen for my cue. Improv had trained me to listen for the setup. Leading Bible studies had conditioned me to listen for the teachable moment.

Every skill I'd developed was about listening just enough to know when it was my turn. Even in improv, where "listening" was supposedly everything, I was really just mining for material, waiting for the hook that would let me steer the narrative somewhere interesting.

So when they announced the listening exercise—seven minutes of pure listening, no interrupting—I settled into my metal folding chair feeling pretty good about myself.

Then the timer started.

The woman¹ across from me wrapped her hands around her coffee cup like she was holding something sacred. Her voice cracked as she began sharing about her father's dementia. Thirty seconds in, I felt the familiar itch to speak. My mind raced ahead, crafting the perfect response.

I had a father story too.

I knew the grief of watching someone disappear.

I could help, comfort, relate.

6:15 remaining.

Her words kept coming, but I'd stopped receiving them. Instead, I was lost in my own mental screenplay—my lines, my wisdom, my moment to shine when this timer finally stopped its relentless countdown.

What was I so afraid of hearing?

4:47 remaining.

Every second stretched longer than the last. My throat burned with unspoken words—twenty different ways to make this easier. For both of us. This wasn't listening. This was performing patience while planning my entrance.

That's when I knew. I had spiritual ear wax.

Layers upon layers of self-protection, self-focus, self-importance—all blocking real connection. Not just with people, but with God. Because if I couldn't hear Him in the woman sitting two feet from me, pouring out her grief, where exactly was I hearing Him?

James wrote, "Everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger" (James 1:19, ESV). But I'd perfected the opposite—quick to speak, slow to hear, and secretly angry at anyone who made me sit in silence. The very next verse explains why: "Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires" (James 1:20, NIV).

My urgency to respond, to fix, to relate—it wasn't producing anything holy. It was just noise covering my inability to receive.

2:30 remaining.

Luther called it being "curved in on ourselves"—incurvatus in se. Like looking at the world through a curved mirror where everything warps back to our own reflection.

You share pain; I think about my pain.

You celebrate; I consider my achievements.

You question; I prepare my answers.

The wax builds up so gradually we don't notice. All my training had just added layers—teaching me to perform listening rather than practice it. Each conversation became another coating, especially the spiritual ones. In prayer, I filled silence with my needs. In Scripture, I hunted for verses that confirmed what I already believed. In worship, I performed rather than received.

Jesus constantly said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear" (Mark 4:9, NIV). Now I understood why He had to keep repeating it. Most of us have ears full of something else entirely.

0:58 remaining.

The woman was crying now. And suddenly—finally—my internal monologue stopped. No rehearsal. No rescue plan. Just presence.

For fifty-eight seconds, I actually listened. Not to craft a response. Not to find my connection point. I simply received her pain as the sacred thing it was.

0:00 remaining.

She looked up. "Thank you. No one's ever just... listened before."

Neither had I.

Something cracked inside me that day. Not the wax—that would take more than seven minutes to dissolve. But the recognition of it. The awareness that I'd been spiritually deaf for so long I'd forgotten the sound of genuine connection. Of God speaking through someone else's story. Of holy ground in another person's pain.

The exercise ended, but the revelation had just begun. Now I heard the wax everywhere—coating my prayers, muffling my relationships, deadening my worship. Every interaction became evidence of how thick the buildup had become.

That night, I sat with James again. After telling us to be quick to hear, he adds: "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you" (James 1:21, NIV).

Get rid of the filth. Humbly accept.

But how do you receive when your receivers are clogged?

How do you hear God in others when you can't stop hearing yourself?

I was about to learn that none of us can remove the wax ourselves. We need help—and the help that comes might feel more like heat than healing.

Because I wasn't the only one who couldn't listen.

Next week, I'll share what happened when I realized my entire church had become a wax museum—beautiful, preserved, and utterly unable to hear the cries at its door. And why the institutions meant to help us hear God often become the very places that pack our ears with more wax.

When did you last sit in silence with someone's pain without listening for your cue? What might God be saying through the person you're too busy to really hear?

LINKS TO THE COMPLETE SERIES

PART ONE: I Thought I was a Good Listener Until the Timer Started: Seven Minutes That Changed How I Hear God in Others

PART TWO: I Wanted to Hear God Louder—But All I Heard Was the Machine: When a Christian Community Chooses Algorithms Over Aching Hearts

PART THREE: When Grace Melts the Wax: Becoming a People Who Hear and Heal

1. Certain details have been altered to protect the identity of the woman in this story. The heart of the story remains true.