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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

CLARITY

Have you ever said something to someone and, having listened to their response, realized that they didn’t grasp the tenth part of what you were saying? Or felt like they weren’t listening?

Perhaps this is only common to preachers. After all, preaching, as they say, “is just talking in someone else’s sleep.” But I have a feeling that you know what I’m talking about, that you’ve experienced communication frustration. Where does it come from? Why is communication, especially communication about spiritual things, so difficult? Well before you take a mega phone to the next person that doesn’t listen consider a few things.

A friend who is an engineer for a large utility company tells me that when he had to hire some new engineers he required applicants to hand write sample repair instructions to a mechanic. Something like two out of ten could do it with any competence. Our education system is not what it used to be. More and more people are graduating from high school and even from college without the ability to communicate.

We are also in a much denser communication environment than ever before. Television segements and commercials are shorter and faster, cell phone calls and text messages come at us fast and furious, ipods, emails, pop-ups, dual screens – all of these technologies force feed us with hundreds more messages than earlier generations had to process, causing us to erect thicker message filters than we did forty or fifty years ago. We humans can only absorb so much information at a time. As a result, attention spans have shrunk. We are also becoming more reliant on pictures and music and less on words. We are a nation of receivers tuned to the elemental frequencies of image and melody. Language is becoming harder to digest.

But there is a third reason that people often cannot hear what we’re trying to say, especially if our message concerns the kingdom of God. Spiritual forces are at work. Consider Jesus and Paul’s comments on the matter:

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. (Jesus in Mark 4:15 NIV)

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (Paul in 2 Cor 4:3-4 NIV)

The ability to communicate clearly and powerfully is a skill that can be learned. But in the end only God can penetrate the darkness, the spiritual veil that covers the heart of men and women. So no matter whom you’re talking to or when, before you begin to speak, pray for the Lord of light to open the eyes and ears of the soul in your listeners. He alone has the power to make his light “shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6).

Dad Is a Powerful Word


Dad is a powerful word, because Fathers are molders of young lives.

I once asked a violent friend what he remembered about his father, who had died when my friend was only twelve. He said, “I remember a loud, angry spanking machine.”

In Ramsey Count, Minnesota, ninth and tenth graders were interviewed about their dads. They were asked this question: "What comes to mind when you think of the word 'dad'?" Answers came from both ends of the spectrum. One end of the spectrum said, "I think of the word jerk." Others thought of the words angry, mad, and absent.

On the other hand, some of the young people said, "I think of wholeness, kindness, security, safety." Dad is an immensely powerful word.

Isa 64:8 says: O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (NIV).

Dad we are the potters in our children’s lives. So we need to be careful how we shape that clay. One of the ways to do that is to catch them doing something right.

Do you ever catch your teen doing something right? Or do you only call out the infractions?

One teen was always in trouble at school, so when his parents received one more call to come in and meet with his teacher and the principal, they knew what was coming. Or so they thought.

The teacher sat down with the boy's father and said, "Thanks for coming. I wanted you to hear what I have to say."

The father crossed his arms and waited, thinking, “What can I say this time?” The teacher proceeded to go down a list of ten things—ten positive affirmations of the junior high "troublemaker." When she finished, the father said, "What else? Let's hear the bad stuff."

"That's all I wanted to say," she said.

That night when the father got home, he told his son what he had heard. And not surprisingly, almost overnight, the troublemaker's attitude and behavior changed dramatically. All because a teacher looked past the negatives.[1]

Colossians 3:21 says “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; that they may not lose heart.” Sometimes that means, catch them doing something right.



[1] Citation: Bonne Steffen, editor of Christian Reader; true story from a Florida Christian school; source: Peter Lord, former pastor of Park Avenue Baptist Church, Titusville, Florida