Have you ever been in a relationship where everything was all about the other person? The time you spend with this person is all about their needs and wants. The focus is on their children, their career, on and on. This person likes you and likes being with you, yet seems not interested in you personally. He or she doesn’t take the time to hear what you have to say or discover who you are.

If you know and love someone like this, then you are in an unbalanced one-sided relationship. Who wants that type of relationship?

I hate to say it, but the God of all grace, who deserves all glory in heaven and on earth, has seriously unbalanced, one-sided relationships with His children. That’s us and we are the talkers.

How does this happen? Well, our prayers usually begin with praise and thanksgiving.  Right? That’s very good. Then next comes intercession and petition where we lay out our problems and those of our family and friends before Him. We tell Him we want His help and healing. We tell Him we want His joy and strength. Then we say, “Amen” and walk away. Alas, We are doing all the talking.  Sadly, we have made our relationship with God all about us.

Good relationships involve listening as well as speaking. Granted, listening isn’t easy by any means. Human beings speak with gestures, inflection, and facial expressions and we still have problems listening and hearing each other. How much more difficult is it to listen to Someone we can’t even see or hear?

Each and every one of us are prone to an unbalanced one-sided relationship with God. By human default, we do all the talking. So how can we improve our listening skills toward Him? How do we learn to hear and recognize His voice?  Read my next post It’s All Talk – Part 2. I will share 7 ways we can hear God speak if we take the time to listen.

By the way, did you know that God initiates all prayer?  We aren’t the originator of our prayers, He is.  Our prayer life is a response to His work within us.  You can never pat yourself on the back for even having a prayer life, it is His work within you.  I guess this is the subject of another blog, but in the meantime as Steve Brown often says, “You think about that.”

Any comments?