Gathering Questions - Embodying Hope

Over the past few weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed gathering questions.  Recently I was in a bar gathering questions and I received some terrific ones.  It seems so easy just to ask folks if they have questions about God and life.  This ends up opening up some great doors for real conversations about the deepest matters of life. 
Over and over I am awe-struck about the ease of just being a listener.  So often we feel like we have to talk and talk and talk.  But in reality, being present in the conversation as one who is willing to listen is even more important.  Sure there are times where we need to talk ------- but that should always be tempered with the ear attuned to the conversation in front of us. 
Two words that have been sticking with me over the last couple months are these: Embodying Hope.  In so many ways we can live into that embodiment of hope by being good listeners.  This is much like Job's friends (at the beginning of the book of Job ------ not the end).  It says in Job 2.13: "They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great."  They literally sat with their friend ------ they didn't give advice or try to convince him to think the way they thought.  Instead, they sat.  And in this action they embodied a hope that there was something more in this life.