There is a line from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that has stayed with me throughout my chaplaincy journey: “When we stop listening to people, we stop listening to God.” I did not fully understand this before, but the more time I spend in the hospital, and even in my car when transporting seafarers, the more I realise it is true in the simplest and deepest way. In the hospital, people often speak from a place of fear, confusion, or exhaustion. Sometimes they do not even need answers; they simply need someone who will not hurry them. When I sit beside a patient and really listen, not to reply, but to understand, something shifts in the room. Their breathing slows. Their eyes soften. The tension drops. And in that quiet moment, I feel that I am not only listening to their words but to the movement of God within their story. It is in those moments that I understand what Bonhoeffer meant: listening itself becomes a form of prayer. The same thing happens when I drive seafarers to the airport. Many of them have been at sea for months. Life onboard does not always give space for honest conversation. Yet for some reason, inside the car, where there are no uniforms, no ranks, no pressure, they begin to talk. Sometimes about family, sometimes about worries, sometimes about life dreams they have never shared with anyone. And all I do is listen. No preaching. No teaching. Just presence. And I have seen how much relief that simple act brings. What I realised is this: my ministry is not defined by the building I am in. It is not limited to the hospital ward or the chaplain’s office. Sometimes it happens in the quiet hum of the car engine, or during a nighttime drive to Manchester Airport, when a seafarer finally feels safe enough to speak from the heart. In both places — the bedside and the car seat, God invites me to the same posture: to listen gently, humbly, and without rushing. This reflection reminds me that I am not called to fix people’s lives or answer every spiritual question. I am called to listen, truly listen, because in that listening, people find space to breathe again. And in that silence, as Bonhoeffer teaches, we discover that God has been speaking all along, not with loud answers, but with quiet companionship.