THAT IS NOT WHAT I SAID

I do not know the reason. My wife believes my hearing is going bad. I believe she did not tell me what she wanted to tell me. She is so used to talking to the dog, I think she may tell him and think she told me. She may have told my son and thought she had told me, too. It cannot possibly be my fault. I may be getting a little older, but I am certain that I pay as much attention to what she says as when we were dating.

Whatever the reason is, I am currently hearing my wife tell me that she already told me something. If I heard what she said and repeated it back to her, she would tell me, “That is not what I said.”

I know we are not the only people where miscommunication is a daily part of life. People are always misunderstanding what others say or just not paying attention at all. The biggest problem does not even appear to be a lack of listening as much as it is hearing what you want to hear.

It is like your wife saying, “We need dinner, go to the store and buy some chicken.” Some people will hear that we need food tonight and bring ice cream home without the chicken. (Yes, I have witnessed an example of this.)

This week a politician gave a speech expressing her opinion. The speech was over eight hours long. Some heard this and thought this person must have been doing a great thing. I, on the other hand, heard that someone wasted eight hours of his or her life that no one listening will ever get back.

When I worked in retail and arrived at work, my bosses would tell me that a certain section may need a little extra help by saying, “There’s an opportunity.” All I heard was that customers had destroyed my area.

The interpretation changes the outlook.

The same thing goes with the Bible. We hear what we want to hear. People say the truth will set you free, but they leave out the part of knowing the truth. Truth cannot set you free unless you know what that truth is. Some people hear this and then begin to search for the truth. They forget to read the context of the verse that says if you hold onto the teaching of Jesus, you will know the truth.

Some people also hear that money is evil. However, the Bible does not say that. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. That is a completely different thought. It would not make sense for God to make certain people rich, like Isaac in Genesis 26:13, if money were evil.

These are just two instances but trust me when I say there are many more.

We need to put aside what we want to hear and begin to listen to what people say. Every argument has two sides, but there is only one version of the story that is correct. This is because we choose to filter out what we do not want to hear.  

Become a listener. Hear what people say, and they will not tell you, “That is not what I said.”