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A man wrote to Reader's Digest about how he had just installed pontoons on his small airplane for landing on the water.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Christians: Seek First to Understand - Proverbs 3: 1-12;
Philippians 2: 3-9 - February 7, 2010 - Cicero UMC - Everett J. Bassett

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A man wrote to Reader's Digest about how he had just installed pontoons on his small airplane for landing on the water. The first time he took the plane up over the lake his wife rode with him. As they prepared to land in front of their cottage, he automatically pushed the controls to put the wheels down is if landing on a runway. His wife saw what he was doing, and said, "Harry. What are you doing? Put the wheels back up. We're landing on water!" Somewhat stunned, the man got the wheels up just in time to land safely on the lake. They sat there dazed for a moment, both realizing that they might have just barely diverted disaster. Then Harry said, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I hope it's a long time before I do something that stupid again." And
with that, he opened the door, took a step out, and fell into the water.

I've been preaching about habits - things we do without thinking, like pushing a
button we've pushed a hundred times before, or stepping out through a door without
looking. There are some habits we can cultivate to help us succeed in life, and today I'd
like to add number 5 to the list we've been building from the teaching of Stephen Covey.
It is an essential one: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. And like most of
the habits I've talked about already, this one goes counter to much we see in society
today. People seem to spend a lot of time wishing they were better understood. We have
been called the culture of narcissism. Nobody really understands me. Nobody cares
what 1 really think. Nobody listens to me. What Covey suggests is that an effective
person will turn that around - that in your relationships, whether with a spouse, a child, a
friend, a co-worker - wherever - your goal will be to truly understand the other person.
Of course, we want others to understand who we are, and what we long for. But Covey
says that will come as our focus is on truly understanding the other person.

Each of the habits Covey has suggested has been very compatible with our Christian values, which is what attracted me to them for preaching these sermons. But this one is at the very heart of our Christian faith. The apostle Paul wrote it beautifully to the Philippians: "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of
others." In other words, seek first to understand. And how do we do that? By
remembering what our Savior did for us. Again, Paul writes it beautifully: "Let the
same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross."

There could never be any question that Christ loves us; that is well proven in the many blessings of life. But he could never be content with loving us from afar. He came into this world to experience this earthly life. To understand us. To experience our pain, our human doubts, our dreams, even our deaths. That's what we mean when we say that
Jesus was fully human. And that impulse in Jesus to take the form of another human, to
humble himself, to understand what we feel - Paul says we should do this, too.

But it does not come easy. Someone said that there are a lot of people today who are hard of hearing, but there are a lot more people who are hard of listening. We don't listen to each other very well. I looked for some good examples of that, but for some reason I can't fathom it was a lot easier to find examples of men who don't listen than it was women. I think, for example, of the commercial of a guy reading the newspaper, and the girl comes in and says, "Honey, does this dress make me look fat?" And the guy is
absorbed in the sports pages and says, "You betcha." And after she leaves he looks up
and realizes that was not his shining moment.

Or there was the little piece 1 found called, "Why guys don't write advice columns."  The letter says this: "Dear Mitch: The other day 1 set off for work, leaving my husband in the house watching TV. 1 hadn't gone more than a mile when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home, only to find my husband kissing my next-door neighbor. He was let go from his job six months ago, and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but I don't know if 1 can ever trust him again. What should I do? Sincerely, Heartbroken.

And Mitch writes back: "Dear Heartbroken: A car stalling can be caused by a variety of problems with the engine. Check that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it's clear, check the jubilee clips holding the vacuum pipes onto the inlet manifold. Or it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber. Good luck, and write back if I can help further."

So that's why men don't write advice columns, but the fact is any of us can miss the boat when it comes to really listening to - understanding another human being. We have so much of our own agenda in our human encounters that our ears and minds close up.

Here's an encounter between a parent and a child where that happened. The parent
finds the child staring down at an open book, looking very discouraged. "What's the
matter?" asks the parent. "I can't get this math," says the child. That simple exchange
starts a long freight train in the parent's mind. Here is some of the freight: When I was a
child, I struggled with math. And no one took the time to explain it to me. I swore I
would never do that with my own child, but I've been so busy with my own work that
here he is having the same trouble. Where did I fail? My parents told me he wasn't
applying himself in school, and 1 argued with them. Now they'll think I don't even know
what's going on. School is so important. This is a testing year. I hope I say the right
thing here; it could really set the course for whether he will feel like he can succeed or
not. What should I say? Do we need tutoring? How would I ever afford that?

And so the train goes. The train of our own freight can go so hard and fast that we
don't listen to each other. We want to give advice; we want to solve problems; we want
to come out looking wise; we want to keep our place in this relationship. When really all
the child may need is a chance to say that someone called him a name just before math
class today, and that really hurt. Or all our friend or spouse or neighbor or co-worker needs is to know that someone cares enough to truly listen and understand who they are,
what they dream, where they hurt. Covey calls that giving somebody psychological air.

We know we need air to survive physically. That's just as true psychologically, and
understanding and compassion are the psychological air we give each other.

Covey believes that cultivating that habit of seeking first to understand can make a difference in our homes, our friendships, our work, and it would make a huge impact if
the world we live in operated that way. If we could really learn to understand each other.

I think another place it could make a difference is prayer. Did you ever notice that
about 99% of the time we spend in prayer around here, we're talking? I'll admit it -I'm
probably the biggest culprit. Gotta find the right words; gotta be eloquent enough so God
has no trouble figuring us out - who we are, what we want, what's truly on our hearts,
and so on. But what if the main purpose of prayer isn't saying it well enough so God can
understand us? What if the first and best reason to pray is for us to listen enough so we
can understand God? Maybe our prayers need some balance, to be more of a two-way
street. As important as it may be for us to pour out our hearts before God, maybe it's just
as important for us to be still before God, so He can pour out His heart into us.

Sharon steered me to Proverbs 3: 4 this week, which really seems to fit this morning: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely upon your own insight." We need to let go of some our own need to always steer the conversation with God and be heard - at least long enough to understand who we are relating to when we pray. Then when we get to some of Jesus' teaching on prayer - verses like, "Ask, and it shall be given unto you. Seek, and you shall find," we won't make the mistake that so many do. We won't see that as a kind of blank check, and God as a kind of genie out of a bottle granting us three wishes. So when we don't always get our wishes, we say, "I can't pray." Maybe those words of Jesus were intended for people who had spent a lot of time listening to God, and learning to understand who God really is. When you spend that kind of time, something transforming happens within you. Your desires become more like God's desires, and you learn to truly trust in the Lord. You understand that God is not in the genie business, but He is overflowing with grace and love and compassion. And when
you ask for the important things - healing for a loved one, justice and hope for Haiti -
you are placing your prayer before a trusted Friend, whose heart is reflected in your own.

Today we come to the table of the Lord. And there are a lot of ways to talk about
what that might mean. But today may it be in part a reminder of the lengths our Savior
went to understand us - coming down form heaven, humbling himself even to death,
giving his Body and Blood so that we might understand how loved we are by our
heavenly Father. And may we then be nurtured to serve others. The more we seek to
understand him, the more we seek to truly hear each other, the more we'll be understood
ourselves, and what a difference that kind of love would make in this world.