Lynne Baab

Praying about the flow of time: An unusual option for Lent

Lynne Baab • Tuesday March 11 2025

I’m listening carefully to someone I find a bit challenging. As I try to listen well, I’m bringing to mind various listening skills I’ve learned over the years. The person describes something from their life that I find both interesting and confusing. I try to pick up something from their description that I can follow up on. I decide to ask an open-ended question that will enable them to go in whatever direction they choose. They continue to talk, and I try to give them eye contact. I use those small sounds that help people know we’re listening: “hmm,” “yeah,” and “interesting.” I try to tell an occasional brief story from my life so they don’t feel they’re dominating the conversation. I come away with a new picture of this person, especially their kindness of heart.

When I get home, I'm tired. Listening intently is hard work. But I feel grateful that I made the effort, that God helped me pay attention (mostly), and that I got a glimpse of this person’s heart. I remember one interchange I could have handled better. I’m going to ponder how to improve my listening in similar situations.

Our ability to listen is not set in stone. We can grow as listeners. In the past dozen years, I’ve been reading, teaching, and writing about listening. Everything I’ve learned indicates that listening skills can be developed.

Why might listening be a skill to focus on during Lent? Aren't fasting or trying to pray more often more typical Lenten practices? I wrote two weeks ago about adding and subtracting things for Lent. We’re only one week into Lent, with more than five weeks to go. If you haven’t decided what to do this year during Lent, you might consider adding a focus on listening skills. If you’re wondering why I would recommend growing as a listener as a Lenten goal, here are some reasons:

1. Jesus was a champion listener, and one way to view Lent is an opportunity to be transformed a bit more into Jesus’ image. Read  John 3 or 4 (or almost any section of the Gospels) and watch for Jesus’ ability to listen profoundly to all sorts of people.

Jesus, your Spirit is transforming us into your image. Help us grow in following your model of paying deep and careful attention to the people with whom we converse.

2. Listening well puts us in a place of receptivity to the other person’s goals, desires, opinions, thoughts, and concerns. In other words, listening well can help us engage with other people on their terms, which is an aspect of love. Growing in love lies behind any spiritual practice we might choose for Lent.

Holy Spirit, open us to perceive other people’s goals, desires, opinions, thoughts, and concerns. Give us patience and kindness as we encounter others so that we can engage with them on their terms.

3. Listening well helps us grow in humility. Some degree of humility is necessary to go to the place of receptivity described in #2, and going to that place frequently helps us grow in humility. It’s a bit of an upward spiral: humility helps us listen better, and listening well helps us develop humility further. Growing in humility is another important goal of all spiritual practices.

Jesus, you did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Instead, you emptied yourself and became like a servant to us. We pray for the same kind of humility as we talk with the people in our lives.

4. Listening well helps us see the image of God in others in way we could never have imagined. The unexpectedness of listening, the surprise of what we learn from it, is a lovely reflection of the surprise of the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Surely, experiencing the Holy Spirit in new ways is a good goal for Lent.

Creator God, you placed your image in each person we encounter. Help us listen in a way that reveals the surprise of your Spirit’s work in others and in us.

If you’d like to set some listening goals for Lent, you might find ideas from some of the resources I’ve written to help people grow as listeners. A good number of these resources are posted here on my website. Here are articles on:

• dealing with inner noise as we listen
• letting go of agendas as we listen

And some blog posts about:

• what makes listening holy
• listening and compassion
• listening to God
• the role of listening in Christian discipleship
• hospitality and listening
• an amusing story of why listening matters

And my book, The Power of Listening: Building Skills for Mission and Ministry.

I believe a Lenten commitment to pay attention to listening will bear lovely and unexpected fruit. The last decade or so of focusing on listening has been fascinating for me, and I’ve experienced lots of stimulating and unanticipated growth.

Holy Spirit, guide and empower us into practices for Lent that will help us see you afresh, draw near to you in new ways, love you more deeply, and follow you more closely.

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Next week: Nowruz and the equinox. Illustration by Dave Baab: Unicol courtyard, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

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Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is an author and adjunct professor. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christian spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her two 2024 books, both of them illustrated with her talented husband Dave's watercolors. She is thrilled at how good the watercolors look in the printed books, and in the kindle versions, if read on a phone, the watercolors glow. Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide guides the reader into new ways to pray about the topics in the title. Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional guides the reader to a psalm for each day of Lent and offers insightful reflection/discussion questions that can be used alone or in groups. 

Another recent book is Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian  Life, available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her most popular book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: empathy, bringing spiritual practices to life. Sabbath keeping for recent grads., and Sabbath keeping for families and children.

Lynne was interviewed for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
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"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping