1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.

Paul says, “You must keep on loving with all your heart.” When I read this passage of scripture, I immediately turned to God for help. I recognized that God’s instruction is to love not just with a part of our hearts, but with our entire hearts. This realization prompted a number of questions: How can I achieve this? How do I maintain this level of love for a lifetime? What choices do I need to make to ensure love lasts? What steps should I take if I want my love to endure?

Through this reflection, I have learned that there are four essential things we must do to make love last in our relationships. The first is to listen with all our hearts. Interestingly, listening is something that many people find difficult. Some are more interested in talking because they enjoy hearing their own voices.

However, our relationships will be so different if we listen to one another. James 1:19 “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” If only couples would implement these three things – be slow to speak, be slow to get angry, and be quick to listen. The depth of guidance God provides in His Word is truly amazing. God’s Word says, be quick to listen but sometimes we struggle with listening because we don’t really know how to listen. One of the keys to listening is to hear people as they want to express themselves, not as we want to interpret it. We often prefer that people talk the way we want to hear it. But God’s Word is telling us to listen to people the way they wish to communicate it.

In a marriage relationship, for example, you need to listen to your spouse in the way he or she prefers to communicate. In most cases, men are very direct in their communication, while women enjoy telling stories. Women often thrive on sharing the details that lead up to the event and beyond. The way most men respond to the question, “how was your day,” is very different from how most women respond. Regardless of who is listening and how the storyteller prefers to share, listening with all your heart means engaging with the story as the storyteller wishes to tell it. The good news for both of us is that we can learn to listen with all our hearts.

“We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.” – William Law