In a TED Talk, Celeste Headlee outlines “10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation.” One of those might appear to be counterintuitive: In order to have good conversation, we need to listen. Often when the other person is talking, we aren’t really listening to them but forming in our minds what we next want to say. Headlee quotes author Stephen Covey: “Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand. We listen with the intent to reply.”

Scripture has much to say about listening, especially when it comes to God. Ecclesiastes is rather blunt: “Keep your ears open and your mouth shut” (Ecclesiastes 5:1 nlt). It reminds us that God knows a whole lot more than we do—“God is in heaven” (v. 2)—so it’s wise for us to listen to Him. A verse in Proverbs seems to resonate with the quotes from Headlee and Covey: “Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions” (18:2).

What does this mean for us? As we come before God in prayer, we would do well to make time to actually listen to Him, not just rattle on with our lists of concerns and worries. And as we find ourselves in conversations with others today, we might be surprised at how our relationships deepen when we’re really listening to them, not just figuring out what we want to tell them.