When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving me advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why
I shouldn’t feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something
to solve my problem, you have failed me,
strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I ask is that you listen.
Don’t talk or do-just hear me.
Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get
you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering,
but not helpless.
When you do something for me that
I need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact
that I feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational,
then I can stop tying to convince you
and get a bout this business of
understanding what’s behind
this irrational feeling.
And when that’s clear,
the answers are obvious
and I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense
when we understand what’s behind them.
Perhaps that’s why prayer works,
sometimes, for some people –
because God is mute, and
he doesn’t give advice or try to fix things.
God just listens and
lets you work it out for yourself.
So please listen,
and just hear me.
And if you want to talk,
wait a minute for your turn-
and I will listen to you.
Very informative site. Thank you. I have always liked the poem “Please Listen†but since it has no copy write I change the 10th and 11th paragraphs to better reflect (according to the Bible) on whom God really is.
i.e. God is not mute. According to John 10:27 – My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
God does give advice. Psalm 119:24 – Your testimonies also are my delight; they are my counselors.
God does fix things. 1 John 5:15 – And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
God does not just listen and lets you work it out for yourself. Romans 8:28 (NIV) – 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Take out the part about God and it is a good secular poem. Leave it in and it becomes very misleading as to the true nature of God. Does it belong on a site that is calling people back to God? Well, that is your call.
“Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.†—C.H. Spurgeon