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What keeps you from being more curious about another person’s reality?
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Busyness, fear of having my inadequacies exposed, sureness of my wisdom (apart from the Spirit), my desire to be liked.
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Fear of offending them by asking questions or feeling like I know what they need to do to be better keeps me from being curious sometimes. Sometimes I can’t think of a good question to ask.
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Fear of them rejecting my curiosity, or me not being capable of knowing how to afford grace to their situation. I tend to get stumped or not be able to give concise answers about how grace can effectively help thier situation.
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My biggest problem is patience.
I have never had much patience with people, especially people who meander when they talk.
But “Love is Patient” and when I don’t have patience, it is because I don’t love enough.
I learnt this when I had kids, kids who talk about stuff I had no interest or patience to listen to and when we drifted apart, it was all my fault.
And then I also realised when I drifted apart from my wife, it was because I had no patience.
Not enough love, no patience, and therefore no curiosity.
And patience is a fruit of the Spirit…
And so I needed to be broken about my need for God… -
Fear, risk, maybe I’ll have to reveal more of myself.
Fear that I’ll get stuck by being too curious and I’ll be revealed as a fraud.
Risk that this requires me to be more open than I’ve ever been before by the prompting of the Holy Spirit.