The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction, By Adam S. McHugh alt

The Listening Life

Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction

by Adam S. McHugh

The Listening Life
Ebook
  • Length: 224 pages
  • Published: December 09, 2015
  • Imprint: IVP
  • ISBN: 9780830879694
Other Formats:

Christianity Today's Book of the Year Award
Logos Association Bookstore Award
Bookwi.se's Favorite Books of the Year
Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year

"Be quick to listen, slow to speak." —James 1:19

How would our lives change if we approached every experience with the intention of listening first?

In this noisy, distracting world, it is difficult to truly hear. People talk past each other, eager to be heard but somehow deaf to what is being said. Listening is an essential skill for healthy relationships, both with God and with other people. But it is more than that: listening is a way of life.

Adam McHugh places listening at the heart of ourspirituality, our relationships and our mission in the world. God himself is the God who hears, and we too can learn to hear what God may be saying through creation, through Scripture, through people. By cultivating a posture of listening, we becomemore attentive and engaged with those around us. Listening shapes us and equips us to be more attuned to people in pain and more able to minister to those in distress.

Our lives are qualitatively different—indeed, better—when we become listeners. Heed the call to the listening life, and hear what God is doing in you and the world.

"The Listening Life is the kind of book that made me at times not want to turn the page—because I needed to! What the book did was still my soul and remind me to be still before God—to silence the noise and open the closed doors to hear. In hearing we learn that in listening to God and to one another we enter into the graces of love. On every page Adam McHugh offers wisdom that slowly marches us into a deeper kind of life, one marked by listening to God in a way that teaches us how to listen to one another and to ourselves. There are two kinds of people: those who talk and those who listen—the former need to read this book slowly and listen well to the lesson about reverse listening, while the latter will discover fresh light on a discipline now deepened."Scot McKnight, Julius R. Mantey Professor in New Testament, Northern Seminary
"If it were possible to combine the voices of Dallas Willard, N. D. Wilson and Jim Gaffigan, then what you would get is Adam S. McHugh. His writing is profound, lyrical and self-deprecating in all the right ways. There are few books I want to start again once I've finished. The Listening Life is now one of them. I adore this stunning, important book and want to give it to everyone I know."Emily P. Freeman, author of Simply Tuesday
"Adam McHugh has been a significant contributor to the conversation about how introverts experience the world. His new book, The Listening Life, has the power to reshape how both introverts and extroverts make space for deep listening in a world that swims in the shallows. Highly recommended."Susan Cain, cofounder of Quiet Revolution, author of Quiet
"Listening is one of the best gifts we can give or receive. Listening changes things. Listening, the way Adam McHugh describes it, could just change the world."Ruth Haley Barton, founder and president, Transforming Center, author of Life Together in Christ
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CONTENTS

Introduction
1. The Listening Life
2. The King Who Listens
3. Listening to God
4. Listening to Scripture
5. Listening to Creation
6. Listening to Others
7. Listening to People in Pain
8. Listening to Your Life
9. The Society of Reverse Listening
Epilogue
Notes

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Adam McHugh

Adam McHugh is the author of several books including Blood from a Stone and Introverts in the Church. He has worked as a hospice chaplain and as a sommelier. He is probably the only writer to have been published in both Psychology Today and Wine Enthusiast. He lives in the Santa Ynez Valley on the California central coast.