Charisa Stories

Tag: when bad christians happen to good people

  • The Apostle Paul’s Marketing Plan in Athens, Greece

    Royal Academy of Arts

    I was reading the book of Acts this week when it hit me how much human nature has not changed in the last couple of thousand years. I know that genuine followers of Jesus want to communicate to our divided culture in a kinder and gentler way but still boldly confront non-believers with truth and love. After seeing Paul’s experience, I believe God is telling us in advance that the results will be mixed.

    Acts 17 documents the apostle Paul’s visit to Athens, a city that caused him great distress (the Greek word, roughly translated, means “ticked off”) because the city was full of idols. Yet, instead of arguing with or maligning the Jews and God-fearing Greeks, he reasoned with them and others who came to listen. In their minds Paul was introducing them to some strange ideas but he did it in a way that they wanted to know more. Verse 21 notes that residents of Athens spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.

    Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. (Acts 17:21, NLT)

    Their pastime could be considered an ancient version of our social media scrolling and podcast sharing. I love what happens next. Paul met his audience where they were.

    “So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.” (Acts17: 22-23 NLT)

    Brilliant! So the Apostle Paul downloaded an intellectual tease to cause the skeptics to pay attention. He pointed out a common interest and then offered the audience an upcoming revelation to keep them tuned in.

    Paul had debates with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. What if Paul and the early believers had approached Athens with some of the strategies we use today? Several believers would march throughout the marketplace defiantly holding up placards:

    “If you think you are Stoic now, wait till the Lord returns!”

    “Hey, Epicureans…the party’s over for you!”

    What if Paul had stepped up and announced, “Repent, you pagan, godless sons of the devil, before you burn in a fiery hell.”

    For some reason I don’t think Paul would have had much of an audience, let alone success. When he finished speaking to the crowd in Athens, the Bible records the box score. It’s pretty much what you and I can expect when we sincerely and lovingly explain our faith. Some of them sneered. Those are the ones that we worry about too much. Some of them said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” That means you have at least planted a seed. And a few “believed.” That is my prayer, along with hearing that a few recommitted to the faith. Paul endured all that he did to present the Gospel message to those who wanted to hear more.

    The early church had no chance to “win” the culture war. Instead, they built a community of loving and serving believers that infiltrated the culture. It is important to have theological knowledge, but when you combine that with love and grace you can change the hearts and lives of your family, your neighbors, and your community.

    So, every believer is to build a foundation first on the solid rock of hearing Christ’s words and then putting those teachings into practice, with no excuses. We will make mistakes and fall short of expressing God’s grace. But when we fall short, we should take responsibility, repent, regroup, and reenter the fray to follow the commands of Jesus expressed in Matthew 22:37-40.

    ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.”

    But wait! There’s more!

    39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

    From that solid foundation we can build a healthier church, community, and culture. Paul didn’t have an easy journey at all. He suffered. He was beaten. Jailed. Mocked. But here was his desire to finish strong after an early life that he regretted.

    “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” (Acts 20:24, NLT)

    That is my prayer. We will have also mixed results but our goal is to glorify God and tell others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

    (A portion of this blog came from my book When Bad Christians Happen to Good People)

  • Thomas Jefferson Valued The Moral Teachings Of Jesus

    Thomas Jefferson was an enigma for many. Political enemies in his day accused him of being an atheist yet he started the statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom with the phrase, “Almighty God hath created the mind free.” He certainly would not have been invited to speak at a Christian conference to share his views that most clergymen are “soothsayers and necromancers.” I will confess that I had to look up the meaning of necromancers. It literally means one who interrogates the dead. Okay. Not sure what church Jefferson was referencing.

    Jefferson believed that authentic Christianity had been hijacked by church leaders. Jefferson decided to fix the problem. He took out his scissors and cut out the parts of the Bible that he didn’t believe. He excised the virgin birth, all of the miracles and the Resurrection. He cobbled together a book he titled “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth”. Jefferson described his work as separating the “diamonds from the dunghill.” His clippers removed every miracle while leaving teachings about helping the needy and treating people as we would have them treat us. Jefferson’s called the moral code of Jesus, “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”

    I completely agree with that statement but Jesus stripped of His Divinity and resurrection becomes just a really challenging life coach.

    It is so easy to criticize Jefferson. What audacity! How can you modify sacred texts to fit your own views? But then I took a breath and stepped back. Do I do the same thing without the in your face honesty of Jefferson? When I choose to ignore the hard teachings of Jesus I have, in practice, done the same thing. When I say that some command in God’s Word is too hard I have essentially taken my scissors of doubt and cut that teaching out. When I point out that I cannot forgive or love or give because you don’t understand my circumstances I have clipped out the challenge of supernatural living. In my book When Bad Christians Happen to Good People I wrote a chapter called “This is a Hard Teaching” about the challenging and difficult things that Jesus taught that I tend to mentally and practically excise from my walk. For example, Jesus had this fun little proclamation.

    “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.  (Matthew 5:43-48, NLT)

    Are you kidding me? Love your enemies? Pray for them? Scalpel please…that must be removed. I often feel like the disciples of Jesus who struggled with His teaching about the bread of life.

    Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?” Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, “Does this offend you? (John 6:60, NLT)

    That is the bottom line isn’t it? Sometimes the hard teachings of Jesus offend me. Or at least annoy me. I don’t want to forgive the unforgivable or love the unlovable. I don’t want to serve the least of these because it is inconvenient, messy, and hard. But I have a choice to make. I have to accept the entire Word of God and be open to allowing the Holy Spirit to move in every area of my life. Or I have to take the scissors of my lack of faith to His Word. As for cutting out the miracles and just making Jesus a profound and amazing teacher? I don’t think He gave us that option. Jesus clearly let it be known that He was the Son of Man sent by His Father. If that is not the truth then Jesus was not a great man and teacher. The famous words of C.S.Lewis from Mere Christianity dismiss that philosophy.

    “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon and you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

    So I am praying for the grace to embrace the hard teachings and leave the scissors in the drawer.

  • Considering Christianity? What Is The Most Important Question To Explore?

    I know people who are considering whether putting their faith in the message of Jesus Christ is legitimate. I went through that same journey years ago. I had many doubts then but, to be honest, they often focused on the wrong issues. My uncertainty centered around people who brazenly wore the label of Christian but their actions showed little or nothing worthy of my commitment to their message. I had not done an intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually honest dive into the most important question.

    Is Jesus who he said he is?

    I wrote a book titled When Bad Christians Happen to Good People where I explored behaviors of people claiming to be followers that did not represent the message of Jesus. The proposed title of the book was “Don’t Reject Christ Because of Christians”.

    I got caught up on that worthless detour. Because of the influence of a few followers of Jesus who gracefully and lovingly influenced me I made the decision to explore the validity of the Gospel. I realized that when I reach the end of my journey I cannot claim the failure of others as my excuse for a life of sin and selfishness. The danger is that part one is true. There are many disappointing and even despicable humans who claimed faith but failed. Ranting on others does not excuse my rejection of God’s salvation offer if it is true.

    If the presence of the God is real there is another presence that needs consideration. A spiritual battle exists between God and Satan. The enemy would direct your focus toward those claiming and failing their faith as a very effective plan to deter you from examining the truth of the Gospel.

    Each of us, according to Scripture, is offered the gift of forgiveness. Is that true? Again, this was the important question I decided to pursue.

    Is Jesus Christ who he said he is?

    Examine the claims of Jesus with an open heart and mind. Read the Gospel of John and ask for the Spirit of God to reveal truth to you.

    I find it fascinating that Jesus answered the Apostle known as “Doubting Thomas” with this response.

    Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. (John 14:6, NLT)

    The path to salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus was proclaimed throughout the Bible. Did Jesus conquer death? Did His death and resurrection pay for my sins? I examined the impact of Jesus on His culture. It was the message of Christ that gave value to women, children, the poor, and the ignored. That is often overlooked but it is remarkable how one teacher can change what had been an unchangeable world. And Jesus introduced a trait that was unheard of as a positive in that culture.

    Humility.

    Jesus also taught that some would claim to be His followers who were not in any way known to Him. Those counterfeiters get lumped in with true followers and cause strife.

    Please, please don’t focus on Christians who fail. Focus on Christ. Did he succeed?

    Following Jesus changed everything in my journey. I would not be a good and loving family member or friend if I did not share that with you. I know my heart. I know the crossroads I came to in different seasons of my life and how God gracefully and lovingly rescued me over and over. This is where my journey has come after focusing on the message of Jesus and not on the failing of people.

    Is Jesus who he said he is? That is the question we all must address.

    With all of my heart I say yes.

  • Following Jesus in a Divided World

    I have been thinking and praying a lot about following Jesus in the current climate. How can I represent the grace and love of Jesus in a culture that is angry and divided?

    I read pundits and commentators saying terrible things about the motives of Evangelicals as if all people of faith act in lockstep. They do not. To be fair, some of their accusations are valid. I wrote a book called “When Bad Christians Happen to Good People Happen to Good People” so I would suggest I have no problem owning the shortcomings of Christians. The fact is EVERY ONE of us falls short of the glory of God.

    Too often the church has made what we stand against the message of our faith instead of the wonderful and liberating Good News of the Gospel. The word Evangelical literally means “Good News”. Is that the connotation the word has in our culture today? Do we share in the degeneration of the name?

    Instead of hearing about the forgiveness and love of Christ the secular community perceives that Christians care only about power and forcing their morals into their lives. In my experience these critics of the faith are not necessarily bad people. They simply have not seen grace lived out consistently in our lives. We have failed in our messaging to emphasize the radical grace that gives life, forgiveness, and hope.

    On the faith side, people with genuine and sincere convictions see the cultural erosion and become afraid.  To my secular friends, in my experience these people of faith are also not necessarily bad people. They are worried about the cultures direction and their instinct is to regain control of the moral decline in any way possible. Sadly, the most logical path can be the worst one when the church tries to wield political power to influence morality. Philip Yancey has written a lot on this topic.

    “The gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform. In all the talk of voting blocks and culture wars, the message of grace—the main distinctive Christians have to offer—tends to fall aside. It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power. I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.”

    It breaks my heart that the loudest or the most quoted religious voices seem to be the voices of ungrace.  The Christian community is filled with selfless, giving, and kind people working tirelessly and without notice. I can introduce you to dozens of them that I know personally. But this community does not make the news.

    How do we navigate this ugly climate as followers of Jesus? Here are a few things I wrote down for myself to pray over.

    • Try and see everyone through the eyes of Jesus because my eyes are prejudiced and prideful.
    • Try and love them like Jesus because my love is defensive and selfish.
    • Try and see that no one misses out on the message of grace, identity, acceptance and one-way love that is offered as a free gift of grace by the finished work of Jesus on the Cross.
    • Let others know that my relationship with Jesus and His grace has changed my life, given my life purpose, given me strength to endure tragedy, and real hope for the future.
    • Be gentle in relating the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to people in every situation and not be judgmental of their current situation. My goal is to introduce them to Jesus and let them work it out together.
    • Walk with those who are struggling and remind them that God’s Grace and forgiveness always exceeds their sin. Always.
    • Exhibit grace and kindness to those who attack me for not sharing their views.
    • Freely give grace to everyone I come in contact so I can be salt and light to my little circle of influence.
    • Give generously of my time and treasure to those who have not been as materially blessed in my neighborhood, my country, and around the world.

    Jesus has the final word on this topic and it is a powerful reminder of how His teachings do not align with cultural norms and especially with social media.

    “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:43-45, NLT

    There is a good strategy to live in such a counter cultural way. Understand, appreciate and lean fully into the Grace freely given to you by God.

  • Do You Not Love God if You Don’t Love Your Neighbor?

    I recently finished a free online course from Dallas Theological Seminary taught by Dr. Stanley Toussaint. His application from the Parable of the Good Samaritan was simple and positively convicting.

    ”You can tell how a person loves God by how they love people.”

    Ouch. My defensive response included an excuse about how difficult it is to love some people. Come on Lord. You know them better than I do!

    Later that day I cued a Spotify country song list and up popped a tune by bluegrass singer Rhonda Vincent. God has a sense of humor. The song is called “You Don’t Love God If You Don’t Love Your Neighbor” and the lyrics begin like this.

    There are many people
    who will say they’re Christians
    and they live like Christians on the Sabbath day

    But come Monday morning, til the coming Sunday
    They will fight their neighbor all along the way.

    {chorus}

    Oh you don’t love God, if you don’t love your neighbor
    if you gossip about him, if you never have mercy
    if he gets into trouble, and you don’t try to help him
    then you don’t love your neighbor, and you don’t love God

    I am going to keep my judge’s robe in the closet and not evaluate your heart and whether you love God or not. But I can say from uncomfortable personal experience that if you are living the lyrics above you may want to take a look at your actions in lieu of this command of Jesus.

    A religious expert on the law tried to trap Jesus by asking this question.

    “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
    Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:36-39 NLT)

     The hypocrisy of so many who claim the name of Jesus Christ is the most consistent complaint that I hear from my tens of readers. I hear it from those who are churched, unchurched, and those who wish they had an option other than church. My book When Bad Christians Happen To Good People addressed this topic honestly.

    Why do we often fail in this command to love others? I think some insight that I picked up from my buddies at Truefaced.com helped me to understand the issue.

    Knowing truth does not transform lives. Only trusting truth transforms lives.

    We have lots of people who have logged a lot of pew time and heard tons of teaching. They have memorized verses and they can speak fluent Churchianity. Yet they demonstrate little or no difference from their neighbors who go to church only on Easter and Christmas or maybe never darken the church doors. How can that be?

    I think that for too many Christians they have not fully trusted the truth they have heard. I am learning to put my full weight on the truths that are foundational. That God supernaturally changed me at the moment I put my trust in Jesus for my salvation. I became a new person. So my standing in God’s eyes is not about what I do but about who I am. Do I trust that truth? Do you?

    Do you believe that God’s faithfulness and loving kindness and grace will sustain you in whatever circumstance you find yourself in? Are you willing to give up control and trust that God has your back and your best interests in His eternal plan? Or do you fear that He might require you to go or do something that you really don’t want to do? Does that kind of thinking make sense in light of what Paul writes about Christ?

    Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. (Romans 5, NLT)

    Do I really think that a God that loved me like that would punish me with a bad assignment to love unlovable people because He is displeased with me? Jesus did not say that He came so that I could have life sporadically. He promised abundantly and that means to follow His commands. So I am choosing to trust the truths that I have known for many years. He is trustworthy. His Word is true. I am wasting my time if I don’t put my full weight on those truths. Slowly and often awkwardly I am learning to do that. And it is changing me.

    When I lean fully on who I am in Christ and how remarkable His gift of grace was to an undeserving sinner it makes loving my sometimes annoying neighbor a whole lot more possible. And my response to my neighbor is a good measuring stick of how much God’s love is filling my heart.

  • Don’t Know Much About Theology? Try a Karaoke Challenge!

    I used to get nervous around Biblical scholars. They would start talking about the text in the original languages and I realized the only Greek I understood was yogurt. To be honest, it seemed like some theologians were to joy in Christ what nutritionists were to enjoying cheesecake. They took something potentially full of delight and made you feel guilty about your lack of discipline.

    Yet something changed in my life. I saw the need for a solid theological basis for what I believe.

    All of this came to mind when Sam Cooke’s classic Wonderful World popped up on my playlist. You know the one where Sam builds a strong case for academic slacking actually being a strength.

    Don’t know much about history
    Don’t know much biology
    Don’t know much about a science book
    Don’t know much about the french I took

    But I do know that I love you
    And I know that if you love me too
    What a wonderful world this would be

    I modified some lyrics using that classic tune to describe our lack of theological depth. This classic rewrite appears in my book  When Bad Christians Happen to Good People.

    For the music director. A psalm of parody sung to Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World.
    All rise.

    Don’t know much about theology,
    Don’t know much Christology.
    Don’t know much about Leviticus,
    Don’t know why they had the Exodus.
    But I do know that God loves you,
    And I’m trying hard to be good too.
    What a wonderful faith this would be.

    Well, I don’t claim to be a good Christian,
    But I’m trying to be.
    For maybe by bein’ a good person, brother,
    I can gain eternity.

    (Everyone now…)

    Don’t know much about the Pharisees,
    Can’t explain the Trinity.
    Don’t know much ecclesiology
    Don’t know what a good tithe should be.
    But I think that God forgives my quirks,
    And I figure if I do good works,
    What a wonderful faith this would be.

    Humorous? I hope so. But the problem is not so funny. What do we believe? And why? I think one of the fundamental problems in many churches is that we do not effectively connect the theological dots of justification, imputed righteousness, identity in Christ, grace fueling sanctification, and other assorted church words. Remember the connect the dots books you had as a kid? When you connect the theological dots the picture revealed is Jesus.

    Now I find myself desiring to learn more and more about the Gospel of Jesus. I want to understand church history and doctrine. I want to understand grace and I want to live it. I have a long, long, long way to go but someday I hope that the scouting report on me will reflect this summary of Jesus. Jesus was beautifully described in John’s Gospel as being “full of grace and truth”. Notice that grace is listed first as the delivery element of truth. I am excited about continuing to refine my theological base but I want to always be mindful that truth preached without grace is not received nearly as well as the reverse approach.

    Connect the dots. The picture is beautiful. And I think the picture will begin to look something like this.

    “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

    Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” (Colossians 3, NLT)

    Learning the depth of God’s Word is a healthy and valuable experience that makes it clear what a wonderful world this will be because of God’s amazing grace.

  • Want to Represent Your Faith Effectively?

    Regular consumers of my humble ramblings (bless your hearts) know that I often find spiritual application from song lyrics both secular and sacred. Blame it on faulty brain wiring at the factory. This week I heard a snippet from Carly Simon’s haunting ballad “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” that triggered today’s musing. The song talks about the ideal of marriage. Her partner wants to marry and is convinced their union will make their relationship different. The lyrical response hit my heart.

    You say we can keep our love alive
    Babe – all I know is what I see –

    She had seen too many marriages start with fairy tale dreams and end in sorrow. That sad topic is another blog. What hit me on this day was how that principle of believing only what you see is how we, as followers of Jesus, can impact non-believers. We tell people we have good news. We tell people we have an eternal hope. We tell people they need this Jesus we talk about. But what hurts my heart is that too many people echo Carly Simon’s response.

    All I know is what I see

    I began my book When Bad Christians Happen to Good People with this quote from Brennan Manning.

    “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

    Ouch.

    If my friends, family, and workmates don’t see anything different in my life then why should they listen? Wait..don’t leave me yet! I am not talking about legalistic sin management and self-righteous “good” behavior. I am talking about unvarnished honesty about the radical grace of Jesus. What if I lived that kind of grace?

    What if I showed them grace that frees me to admit my shortcomings without shame and self-loathing? What if I demonstrated  grace that gives me the courage to be vulnerable and let them see who I really am? What if I let them know I am a total train wreck that needs that grace every moment of everyday? What if I lived out of grace that compels me to run to hurting souls instead of retreating to a safe distance to observe and hope it all works out okay?

    What if I quit agonizing about the uncertainty in the world and started sharing my belief that God is in control and He will always be with me? What if I genuinely showed gratitude for the small things as well as the big ones? What if I was consistently kind even when that action was inconvenient? What if I led instead of lamented about racial and other injustices? What if I acknowledged how much Jesus loves me by allowing that love to flow to others? What if I shared that this relationship with Jesus isn’t based on performance or merit but 100 percent on His unmerited Grace? What if I lived like God loves me on my worst day exactly the same as He loves me on my best day? What if I had this honest passage from Paul memorized and remembered it on the way out the door everyday?

    “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!”
    ‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭9‬-‭16‬ ‭NLT‬‬

    Famous theologian D.L.Moody wrote that “Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.”

    That thought would be completely overwhelming if I tried to do it on my own. But thank God I don’t have to attempt that unassisted. Jesus promised to be with me and is there anyone better to have your back?

    Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. (Ephesians 3:17, NLT)

    If I believe that I would guess this little light of mine would burn a few watts brighter. And maybe some skeptics would be willing to listen.