Understanding others is everyone’s business. The parent wants to understand his child; the teacher, his students; the doctor, his patients; the pastor, his congregation; the lawyer, his clients; the executive, his employees; the politician, his constituents; the novelist, his characters; the husband, his wife.
Our ancestors saw few people and had simpler problems in their human relationships. We, by contrast, are becoming part of a complex world-society of billions. More and more, we spend our days with others and must face the problems created by being with others.
The idea of sensitivity can help Christians understand their obligations to the living God and to their fellow men. Christians have a responsibility to be sensitive, to try to perceive and respond to a variety of stimuli. They should be sensitive to people, to human need, to sin, and to the divine will. These are stimuli that demand a Christian response.
First, Christians need to be sensitive to people, and this requires high motivation to understand others and an openness to new experiences with them. Christ commanded that his followers love their neighbors, and understanding is a big part of living. A teen-ager may respond to a quarrel with his parents by saying: “They don’t love me.” He feels unloved because he feels misunderstood. Parents may feel their children do not love them if the children fail to understand the importance of what the parents are trying to communicate to them.
To be sensitive to people, we must be open to experiences with people. Much of our failure to understand our children, our spouses, or our colleagues comes from a failure to be open. Sometimes we are not open because we simply are not physically available. Many parents fail to understand their children simply because they are never around. They are not at home enough to talk with, play with, and in other ways experience life with their children.
Many marriages fall apart because of the unavailability of the one partner to the other. Understanding demands communication. The best kind of communication comes when one can experience the total presence of another person. Anyone who has been through courtship knows that eye-to-eye communication does much more than letters or telephone calls to deepen a relationship.
Physical availability is important if we are to understand people. But it does not ensure understanding. We must also be psychologically open and willing to give full attention to the other person. To decide to “be available” but then to tune the other person out by watching television or reading the newspaper or in some other way obstructing the channels of communication will accomplish little. Our listening must be sincere if it is to lead us into new depths of understanding another person. We must be willing to hear what he says, though we may find it unpleasant and disturbing.
Second, Christians need to be sensitive to human need, not only the needs they see around them but the great problems and needs of the family of man. Overpopulation, widespread hunger, the plight of war victims—problems like these require social and often political solutions.
It is all too easy to be callous toward these great needs. Most of us have enough problems of our own—we don’t feel we need a few more. Yet our Christian responsibility involves the whole human race. The whole world belongs to its Creator. As his servants, we must feel the world family to be an important part of our concern.
Once we have become aware of human need, then we must be prepared to give of ourselves. For some of us this will mean entering a vocation that ministers to the needs of people. Others will have to give money sacrificially. Others will need to become involved politically—writing letters to congressmen, working in a political party, even running for political office.
Third, Christians need to be sensitive to sin. Closely related to the matter of human need is the matter of social sin. Many Christians refuse to take seriously the matter of social injustice. Yet the Bible gives many examples of prophets who spoke out in the name of the living God against this kind of injustice. Problems of injustice abound in our nation. We only need eyes to see and ears to hear.
Once we have seen social evils, we must be willing to speak out. This is not easy. To take a stand for social justice in our society is often risky business. Many ministers in both the North and the South have been driven from their pulpits for speaking out on the race issue. Still biblical faith calls us to be aware of social evil and to speak out in the name of a righteous and holy God.
Besides being sensitive to social sin, we must also be sensitive to personal sin. Some people who are quite aware of social injustice seem incapable of putting their own morality in order. We must be willing to hear the feedback that comes from our own conscience and from others about our own problems, our own personal habits and attitudes that in no way glorify God. Once we have heard this, then we must be prepared to change. This calls for old-fashioned confession and repentance. In this way we can become better servants of the living God.
Fourth, Christians need to be sensitive to the divine will. The Christian needs to ask: What is God’s will for my life? What is God’s will for me this year? What is God’s will for me right now?
How can we find out what God’s will is? Let me set down six practices I have found helpful. We can know God’s will through (1) careful study of the Holy Scriptures; (2) regular prayer in which we earnestly seek to know his will; (3) conversation with fellow Christians; (4) knowing ourselves as best we can; (5) doing that little bit that we know to be his will (when we do, more will be revealed to us); (6) learning from our mistakes.
Once we feel we know God’s will, then it is important to act with courage when the time is right. This is particularly important in our attempts to win people to the Christian faith. We may sense that the time is right to speak to a person about the Saviour but then back off because we lack courage. Or we may know we should speak to someone and have the courage to do it, but be unable to tell when the time is ripe for doing it. It is important to sense God’s timing. We must hear his voice and then act with courage at the right moment.
Jesus Christ was a man who was sensitive to the divine will, to sin, to human need, and to people. This sensitivity was vividly demonstrated in his meeting of the Samaritan woman at the well, his feeding of the five thousand, his purging of the Temple, his going to his death on the cross. And his plea to his people is, “Follow me.”
