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2 {UNDERSTOOD}
“Please understand and love me” ~ Ernest Hemingway

One of our deepest longings, deeper than we even perhaps recognize day-to-day, is the desire to have other people understand aspects of how we are feeling. We don’t want others necessarily to agree with all our feelings, but what we crave is that they at least validate them. This is why people will feel hurt when they do not feel they are being understood or that someone doesn’t care to find out. Ernest Hemingway correctly connected the dots that an extension of love is the motivation to understand where someone else is coming from. As we talk through The Art of Civility, there is no replacement to the art of listening with the intention to better understand the person who is sharing.

Psalm 139:1-6: “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether, you hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

As Christians we start with the reality that God KNOWS everything about us. We are completely seen and understood by our God at all times. Some points to ponder:

1. What thoughts/feelings come up within you as you read this portion of Psalm 139?
2. What does it mean for you to be understood by someone else?
3. What does it look like to seek to understand someone else?
4. What things get in the way of this process happening?

Every person is the sum total of many life experiences. From the way they were raised, to who influenced them in their life, choices they have made, organizations they have been a part of and countless other things that have made them into the person they are today. The Art of Civility is the ability to listen to another person without writing them off, dismissing them, or not hearing them because they hold to differing opinions than we do. We don’t have to agree with everything a person stands for, but that doesn’t mean we can’t seek to understand them for the unique creation of God that they are.