It matters more to stay than to be right.

Scroll through social media feeds. It’s right there. Angry. Righteous. Wounded. Certain. 100% right all the time. Zero exceptions. All of them talking past each other, shouting louder to be heard. They are right. And the volume? It keeps climbing, patience shrinking. And no one is paying attention to all those people bleeding underneath the noise.

No one is listening to them.

I’m just as guilty, crafting eloquently perfect responses in my head, all while the person in front of me is still talking! Certainty in my position is mistaken for wisdom. Hurts harden into camouflaged conviction. But really? It was self-preservation of my bruised ego.

But I’ve buried a son. Before that? I buried my brother. Holding weights like that teaches you. You learn what truly matters, after the dust settles. It’s not who won the argument. It’s not who had the sharper words or the better theology or the most righteous anger.

It’s the one who stayed in the room.

Chaos is all around us. How do we fix our fractured world, where we park ourselves on one side or the other? I don’t know.

But I do know this: every time I’ve closed a door with my words? It ends in regret. When I listen more and talk less? That’s when I felt a shift in me; not them!

So this is where I’m planting my feet:

Wait for them to speak first. Love means listening first, not waiting for your turn to speak. It means asking questions without judgment, not walking away before you hear the answer. Love is patient, first.

I’m not asking you to agree, just sit with this and ask yourself:

When was the last time listening changed you?