If there's one topic I talk about frequently on all my blogs and in all my newsletters it's the many dimensions and aspects of communication. Why? Because it's what really makes or breaks us as a world these days with all the digital advances and internet connections. Hundreds of years ago you might wait weeks or months to get a mail reply from someone or for a courier to deliver a message to you, but these days you can get a response almost immediately. So when essential communications break down such that messages aren't delivered or responded to or the response is insufficient or the response provides intentionally inaccurate information, we're at risk for this very essential backbone of our lives to fail.
And who has the ability to by and large keep things running smoothly? Those who communicate (aka us). It's up to each of us to give our best and most honest efforts to communicating, to keep the conversation going by replying to questions in a reasonable amount of time, to understand that our provision of information or lack thereof will have an impact on someone else, to hold others accountable for their communications, and maybe most important: to follow through on what we say we will do.
If you spend time reading the Bible you know that things seemed, in many ways, so much simpler back then than they do these days. And in many ways they did have a lot less to worry about, certainly fewer people who were exposed to their communications or they were expected to communicate with. And yet, Jesus spends time in Matthew 5 emphasizing the importance of both honest and straightforward communications: ""Just say a simple, 'Yes, I will,' or 'No, I won't.'"" Matthew 5:37a
You probably know that I love a good 400 page book as much as I do a short blog post like this recent and relevant one from Seth Godin. If it takes many words to get your point across well (or tell a good story), that's fine. But if you don't need to write pages to answer a question, don't. It comes down to God calling us to do our very best with the gift of communication, respecting the power that we have through it, and encouraging others to do the same because our world needs healing, teamwork and peace, not hate, lies, or discord. Could your communication use some improving?
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