It took me years to adjust to Uganda’s meandering conversation style; to anecdotes largely irrelevant, save their importance to the teller. It beat the Type A right out of me.

Yet one of the gifts Africa folded in my hands with her ebony ones was the gift of presence; of just being.

Listening, receiving someone’s story, is a profound—and rare—ministry. God extends this in so many questions He already knew the answers to: Where are you? What do you want me to do for you? Who do you say that I am? 

So Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes,

"The first service one owes to others in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear.

We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.

So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to ‘offer’ something when they are together with other people.

They forget that listening can be a greater service…Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either."

Presence, see, is a precious form of love. 

Authors John and Stasi Eldredge note,

"The gift of presence is a rare and beautiful gift. To come―unguarded, undistracted―and be fully present, fully engaged with whoever we are with at that moment. When we offer our unguarded presence, we live like Jesus."

Sometimes I’ve been going so hard for so long, ignoring the fact that I’m hungry or worn out or need care, that it saps my ability to really be there. I might make the right expressions or noises, but that whole “love must be sincere” thing (Romans 12:9)? I’m actually a little bit duplicitous. I’m too hungry to be handing out food.

In Philippians 2, where we’re told to count others as more significant. Others-significance proceeds from our own comfort from God’s love, from affection and sympathy.

We are first loved and received by God so we can set aside our inner grasping. That’s what births someone who’s “all there.”