Tony’s Blog

Good communication is absolutely necessary for enjoying life, but sometimes it feels like a necessary evil.  Sometimes good communication is just plain hard if not impossible.  What you say is not heard the way you intended or the words get clouded by the tone in which you say them or you say them at an inappropriate time. I think good communication in some circumstances is only possible through supernatural empowerment.  Perhaps you are familiar with what I am saying or perhaps you are just tilting your head slightly with a quizical look on your face.  Either way I’ve made my point.

Here is what I’m thinking today about communication.  No matter what our speech reveals something about what is on the inside…”from out of the heart the mouth speaks”.  This means our speech can be a yellow flag for us, that signals we need a time out…not like our childrens’ ”time out” necessarily but some time to reflect on what is going on inside.  When christians say things that surprise them and they wonder “where did that come from” they (we) should see that as a “red” flag because it is showing us something big is going on “inside” because we have just let something slip through our highly sophisticated grids that “usually” keep those words, and phrases filtered out.

So, my simple strategy for sour speech and a hurting heart is…seek some significant solitude walking with Jesus in the gospels as well as perusing the proverbs, with a prayer journal.  The solitude helps to de-clutter our heads while Jesus and the proverbs pierce our hearts and the prayer journal provides a place to ponder and plead for God’s help for all we are finding in our head and heart.  Finally, we must find at least one person with whom we can be absolutely honest with about our findings in our “time out”.

The proverbs say…”a Soft answer turns away wrath”…but what about my wrath?  Soft answers are very hard to offer when we are angry.  So, why are we angry?  Just pondering…looks like I might need some solitude…SMILE.

Tony