Okay, I have a confession. When somebody tells me about a problem, my brain immediately starts looking for a solution. You know, maybe yours does, too. You know, they haven't even finished explaining what happened, and somewhere in my head, there's already this little committee meeting going on, and they're saying, "Okay, here's what we're gonna do. Step one, step two, step three, problem solved. You're welcome." Except sometimes the person never asked me to solve anything. They just wanted me to listen, and those are not the same thing. Have you ever poured your heart out to somebody and before you've even finished, they start explaining what you should do? "Well, have you tried?" Yes, I've tried. I've thought about it. I've Googled it. I've worried about it till 2:17 in the morning, thank you very much. You know, sometimes advice is ex- is exactly what we need, but sometimes we don't need somebody to repair our situation. We need somebody willing to sit beside us in it. And I'm learning that one of the greatest gifts that we can give another human being isn't always an answer. Sometimes it's just our attention, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today Welcome to Pilot Light. I am your host, Josh. And you know, this season we are talking about passing the flame, how our lives affect the people around us. We've talked about noticing people, encouraging them, checking on the strong one, giving the people closest to us more than just our leftovers. Well, today I wanna talk about what happens after someone actually then opens up to us. Because getting somebody to tell you what's really happening and then immediately turning, turning into Dr. Phil. Remember him? I don't know if you remember him or not, but Dr. Phil, look him up, Google him. For the younger generation, you'll figure out who he is. Anyway, it's, it's... That's not the goal. So wherever you're listening from, whether you're heading to work or you're standing in front of the microwave watching the final three seconds like it's New Year's Eve, man, there must be something good in there, or you're sitting in the car for an extra minute because you know as soon as you walk inside the house, someone's gonna ask you where something is, well, you know what? I am so glad you are here. Let's light the pilot light I think my instinct to fix things comes from a genuinely good place. You know, if I care about you and you're hurting, I want the hurt to stop. If there's a problem, I want to help solve it. For some reason, that sounded like Vanilla Ice. If there's a problem, yo, I'll solve it. Check out my hook. Sorry, I did not need to go down that road. But anyway, if you're overwhelmed, I wanna lighten the load. That's love. At least, that's what I tell myself. But I've had to learn something, because fixing is more about my discomfort than the other person's need, and that is a hard sentence. Because when somebody we love is hurting, sitting there can feel helpless. We want to do something, give advice, make a phone call, find a resource, tell them what we would do in that situation. Anything that makes us feel like we're moving toward a solution. But maybe the person in front of us doesn't need movement yet. Maybe they need somewhere safe enough to stop. You know, I've been telling you some of the personal stories and things, and I try to make it relatable in this situation and stuff, and so I'm adding kinda some of my stories in the mix of all the stuff. And I found myself in this same spot, um, where I was trying to help fix something, and really it wasn't the time or the place to do that. I had a coworker that came in my office, he's going through some really difficult things. And, uh, you know, and, and I'm listening and I'm paying, paying attention to what's going on there. And instead of just listening, I started kinda telling a little bit about my story, and I... 'Cause I wanted to be relatable. I wanted to say, "Hey, I understand you. I understand your pain." But instead of being the person just listening and finding out what's going on, 'cause those stories can happen later, I began to do that. And I remember after that meeting going, "Josh, why didn't you just shut up? Why don't, why did you have to make it relatable to the things that you've been through or, or the ways that you found, uh, opportunities to be able to fix it?" And I just sat there and thought, "You know what? That was stupid on my part. I should have just listened." Or just recently, Someone had sent me a message, uh, regarding Pilot Light and some of the stuff that he had been going through and, and, uh, wrote me this really nice message and stuff, and I so appreciate that. But instead of just going, "You know what? Thank you. Thank you for sharing with me. I, I appreciate that," I immediately added some stuff in there to see what I could add to fix it, like that made me someone that had more knowledge in this. And really it wasn't. He was dealing with his own stuff and, and obviously that Pilot Light had meant something to him and he was sharing that. But in that moment, I didn't need to say anything other than, "Thank you," and, "I'm listening," and, "What's going on in your life? How c- how can I listen to what's happening there?" And you know what? Really, it switches over to this thought And there's a question I've learned that can save, honestly, a lot of these conversation, and it's incredibly simple. Here's the question: Do you want help solving this, or do you need me just to listen? It's funny 'cause I used to have a coworker that I worked at, with the dental office, and she would come in the office and she would literally would start out with that, which was really good. It's really helpful. She would just start saying, "Listen, I'm gonna tell you something. I don't need you to solve it, I just need you to listen." And really, I can learn a lot from that, 'cause I think that would be helpful in every situation. That maybe, maybe if we got something going on, maybe we could share that with others and just go, "You know what? I don't need you to solve it." And ladies, you're so much better at this than guys, and guys, we're not very good. We just, we're, we wanna get in there and we wanna solve everything, right? But if we could just start out that conversation with going, "I don't need you to solve it, I just need you to listen," that's it. Because sometimes, you know what? They wanna help, you know? They, they want that help in there. When we ask that question, "Do you want me to solve this or just need me to listen?" Sometimes people do want help, and that's great. Now we can problem solve them together. But sometimes they will say, "I need you just to listen." And suddenly then I know my job. My job isn't to produce an answer. It's just to be present. You know, that is, honestly, that is harder than it sounds. Because listening isn't waiting quietly until it's your turn to talk. Listening is trying to understand another person's world without immediately dragging them into yours. Okay, I'm gonna say that one more time, because I think that needs to kind of get into our souls a little bit here, okay? Listening is trying to understand another person's world without immediately dragging them into yours. So here's my big idea. Being helpful and being helpful in the way someone actually needs are two different things. That is true in marriages, that's true in friendships, parenting, leadership, everywhere. I can give you brilliant advice and completely miss you. Or I can sit beside you, ask good questions, listen carefully, and help you feel less alone. And sometimes feeling less alone is the beginning of finding your own answer. All right, so here's our first point today. Listening is not passive, okay? We sometimes treat listening like the thing we're doing because we haven't figured out what to say yet. But honestly, real listening is work. You're paying attention, you're noticing tone, you're asking questions, you're resisting the urge to interrupt. You're trying to understand what the person means, not just what they said. And that's a huge difference between hearing words and making someone else feel heard. You know the difference immediately when you are on the receiving end, right? You know that. You feel it. We've all had those conversations where somebody's eyes are looking at us, but you can almost hear their brain loading their response. Like, you are just feeding that, and it's going chk-chk-chk-chk-chk, and it's loading up what they're going to spit back out at you. They're not listening anymore. They're waiting Real listening says understanding you is more important right now than impressing you with my answer. And let me tell you, That nails me right in the, the heart on that, okay? Because I do that. I think we all do that. It's like we feel like the need that we need to respond in those moments, and I feel so guilty of that at times, like with people, and a lot of times they just want someone to listen to them, not this, what we think is this brilliant answer. I'm gonna solve all your problems, right? All right, second point in all this: advice given too early can feel like dismissal. Imagine Someone comes up to you and says, "I'm really struggling at work." And before they even finish, we say, "You should find another job." Well, maybe they should, but maybe that's not the point. Maybe what they're actually saying is, "I feel like I'm failing," or, "I don't think anybody notices how hard I'm trying," or maybe even, "I'm scared," or, "I don't know how much longer I can do this." The first problem someone tells you about isn't always the real problem. That's why questions matter. What part of this has been the hardest? How long have you been feeling this way? What do you wish people understood? What are you most worried about? Those questions communicate something advice often doesn't: "I want to understand you before I try to change anything." That's a powerful point there. We need to try to understand the person before we try to change the person. Here's my third point Stop stealing people's struggles from them. This one is especially hard for parents, uh, leaders, and helpers. Sometimes our desire to fix everything actually robs people of something that they need. That's the opportunity to grow. If I solve every problem for someone, they never discover that they can solve problems on their own. If I remove every consequence, they never develop wisdom. If I protect them from every uncomfortable emotion, they never learn that they can survive discomfort. Helping isn't always removing the struggle. Sometimes helping means standing close enough that someone has the courage to walk through it themselves. That's different from abandoning them. You're still there. You're just not taking the journey away from them, and There's a difference between supporting someone and carrying something they were meant to carry on their own. All right, so here's our faith connection. One of the things that strikes me about Jesus is how many questions he asked. Think about that. If anybody ever had all the answers, it was Jesus, right? And yet he asked questions. "What do you want me to do for you?" "Who do you say I am?" "Why are you afraid?" "Do you wanna get well?" Jesus often knew the answer but still created space for people to speak, and I think there's something really important in that. Maybe loving people isn't always about demonstrating how much we know. Maybe sometimes love looks like creating enough space for somebody else to discover what God is doing inside of them. There's also a verse in James that says, you know, "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." Notice the first part there says, "Quick to listen, slow to speak." I am pretty sure I've spent portions of my life practicing that verse backwards. Quick to speak, slow to listen, right? But no, quick to listen, slow to speak. Then we get confused about why the conversation didn't go particularly well. Well, maybe God knew something about human relationships. People need to be heard, okay? People need to be heard. So here's my point here. Let me ask you something. When somebody comes to you with a problem, what happens inside of you? Do you get curious? Or do you start preparing your answer? Do people feel safe telling you things? Or do they know they're about to receive a five-point action plan? When your spouse tells you about their day, do you listen? When your child is frustrated, do you immediately correct their thinking? When an employee brings you a problem, do you ask questions before giving instructions? Here's the harder question, though. Do the people closest to you feel understood by you? Not loved, not provided for, not helped, understood. That is worth thinking about. So here's my Flame Challenge. This week's Flame Challenge might be the hardest one yet. All right, here we go. Have one conversation where your goal is simply to understand. That's it. Ask somebody, "How are you doing?" And if they give you something real, don't immediately fix it. Ask another question, then another, and if you're unsure what they need, ask, "Do you want me to help you think through this? Or would it be helpful if I just listen?" Then respect the answer. Okay? No unsolicited TED Talk here. No three-step plan. No story about how something almost exactly like this happened to your cousin in 1997, all right? Just listen. Give somebody the experience of just being heard All right, so to close out this episode, I've been thinking about how rare it is to feel completely heard. We live in a world where everybody has something to say, right? I'm on a podcast telling you things, and I have something to say. All right? There are opinions everywhere, all right? Don't judge, all right? Yes, I am here and I'm telling you things, and it seems a little weird kinda talking about this in this way, 'cause I'm giving you advice when really I should be listening to you. But anyway, opinions are everywhere. Advice is everywhere. Comment sections are full of people who apparently became experts approximately 11 seconds after reading the headline, right? Have you seen that before? Maybe one of the most counter-cultural things we can become, hold on, is a good listener, someone who doesn't need to have the answer, someone who isn't afraid of silence, someone who can sit with another person's pain without trying to rush them out of it. Because sometimes the person sitting across from you doesn't need your wisdom. They need your presence. They don't need you to make everything okay. They need to know that even while everything isn't okay, they're not alone. And maybe that's one of the purest ways that honestly we can pass the flame. Not by handing somebody our answer, but by giving them enough light to find their own next step Oh, that's good. Okay, that is good. Give them enough light to find their own next step, right? All right, so I want you to think about the people that you've felt safest with in your life, and I bet many of them have had something in common. They listened. You didn't have to perform. You didn't have to have everything figured out. You could just be honest. What if that became part of your legacy? Not, "They always knew what to say," but, "I could tell them anything, and they just listened. I felt understood. They made it safe for me to be honest." That is a powerful gift to leave people, and it costs almost nothing except attention. So, hey, pass the flame. All right, before you go, just like I've said many a times, I wanna hear from you. One of the things I want to do differently this season is to make Pilot Light less of a one-way conversation. So tell me your story. Tell me who lit your pilot light. Tell me about a time someone believed in you, encouraged you, or showed up when you needed it, or tell me how you're passing the flame to somebody else. You know, you don't have to write anything super profound, okay? Just tell me what happened. Because throughout the season, I wanna share some of your stories right here on the podcast. You can send yours to me right through the fan mail link in the episode description. And while you're there, if Pilot Light has meant something to you, would you do two more things? Please share this episode with a person who might need it, and then take a minute and rate the show on the podcast app that you're listening to, because those two things make a bigger difference than, honestly, you realize. They help more people discover these conversations and become part of what we're trying to build here. But most importantly, I just wanna hear from you, because this season isn't just about my stories. I tell my stories to encourage you so that you tell your stories, okay? There's something powerful to our lives lived out loud and telling people and showing them, going, "This is how my life used to be, and what happened, and here's my struggles," and making it real. But then we have to find those opportunities to be able to listen, too, right? Because, like I said, this season isn't just about my stories, it is about ours. So tell me yours, and let's keep passing the flame. All right? So thanks for spending time with me today. This week, don't be afraid of not having the answer. Ask the question. Put the phone down. Listen longer, and give somebody the gift of being understood. So see farther, live deeper. Become who you were created to be, and pass the flame. You were created to be a fire, not just a flicker. So keep the pilot light on, and I will see you next time