One-sided Conversations

 

One-sided conversations: we don’t usually find them pleasant unless we’re the ones doing all the talking. And for you non-talkers, they must be agony to endure.

While I’m confident God loves it when we come to Him chattering with excitement, or when we come to Him asking for help with a problem, I think He’s equally if not more excited when He sees us listening for His voice.

So, this post may be mostly for all the people out there that are members of the Chatty Club; those of us who talk more than we listen. I prefer to call myself loquacious instead of verbose, it just sounds sexier and more flattering. We’re a pretty big club. You’ve probably run into more of us than you thought you would.

We sometimes interrupt what you’re saying to get in our two cents. We sometimes let our minds wander while you’re talking so we’re prepared with something when it’s our turn, if you have a chance to interject at all. Yes, we can be incredibly rude. For that, I apologize in the pithiest way possible: Sorry.

We don’t mean to do it. We wish we could stop ourselves, and sometimes we can – till we hear our own voice again and realize, “Oops – no, I didn’t shut up yet”.

We need to quiet our mind long enough to adopt some method of listening.

Some suggestions include writing out all that’s on our mind first thing in the morning; a “morning dump” if you will.

Perhaps we could wait until evening for important conversations, because, surely by then we’ll be all talked out. (Ha! Can that even happen?)

Snap that rubberband on our wrist every time we hear our own voice?

Ah, we need a sidekick who can motion to us to shut-up when we’ve droned on for too long! Or someone who will pull us aside repeatedly to remind us that yes, we’re talking too much again.

Whether we like it or not, we chase away friendships (or potential friendships) because people will turn and walk the other way when they see us coming.

We can lose out on a lot of valuable information when we’re the one doing all the talking. Believe it or not, the other people in the conversation have valuable input, too! Maybe even more worthy of being spoken than what we’re spouting off about.

Listening. It’s not a hard concept. Some of us just seem genetically predisposed to find it difficult to process into something we routinely do.

I’m no psychologist, but I’d venture to guess that our constant chatter is attempting to fill some need in our lives.

Maybe as a child we were told that ‘children should be seen and not heard’, so now we’re making up for lost time.

All of that rambling to say ---- we need to practice listening. To become good at anything, it usually requires practice. This is no different. Even when talking with our heavenly Father.

Practice listening. God can work with a good listener.

The following verses bring up anger, too. We’ll get to that at another time.

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak [and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires].” – James 1:19-20 NIV

Or – check out the wordier, more poetic version in the Message Bible: “Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, [and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger].”  – James 1:19-20 MSG

Untied Relationships

 

If I was the enemy of mankind, what might be one strategy I would use against them to bring about their defeat?

Satan uses many tactics against us, like fear and intimidation, lies about God, lies about us, our worth.…

But let’s face it, if he could take us out, he would have already.

Then this thought crossed my mind.

“I’d untie their relationships!”

When one enters a relationship with an abusive, controlling significant other, one thing they’ll do is try to cut off the other relationships in your life. They don’t want you to have someone else to turn to.

Though we don’t consider ourselves to be in a relationship with Satan, he’s constantly trying to forge his way into one with us. Those especially susceptible are those who don’t believe he’s real.

He must laugh at the way we think we’re the ones in control.

He’s been around longer than we have. He’s seen you grow up, he knows your likes and dislikes, your fears and insecurities, your areas of special pride. In short, he knows how to tempt and influence you and what snares to put in your path.

Look at all the broken relationships around you. There’s brokenness between parents and their children or grandchildren, between husbands and wives, between childhood friends, between business associates who could’ve done great things together.

When walking and holding hands with a small child who cannot yet appreciate the dangers of this world, we can guide them around the potholes of life, tugging them gently (or wildly if necessary) away from the shifting ground.

But Satan doesn’t want that child to hold your hand. He doesn’t want them to be safely guided by someone who knows the ropes.

He doesn’t want you to hold on to your heavenly Father’s hand, either.

He wants you to fall into the pitfalls and traps he’s set for you.

He wants you to listen to his lies and to hear his voice above the others in your life.

He wants to sabotage and untie the relationships in your life.

You may think you self-sabotage; but who planted the lies in front of you to affect your thinking and influence your choices?

I’m not saying we should blame the enemy for all the failures in our lives. At some point, we need to take responsibility for our decisions and suffer the consequences.

But there are reasons we chose the choices we’ve made; not excuses, but reasons.

Satan loves to dip his finger into every pot of soup we make. And his fingers are DIRTY! He’s coated them with the poison of his lies.

God created us. He created us to need Him – and to need each other.

Satan seeks to untie your good relationships, especially your relationship with God.

Once the knot is untied, where does that leave you? What does it leave you thinking and believing about yourself and others? Does it make you trust yourself and others less? Does it make you trust God less? Might it even make you angry with God?

That’s his goal.

If Satan leaves your relationships alone, perhaps they’re unhealthy relationships that he can use to your destruction.

Jesus Himself said, Satan, our common enemy, comes to steal, kill and destroy. While He [Jesus] comes that you may have life and live it to the fullest! (John 10:10)

What good relationships in your life have been unraveled?

Even if you think they can’t be restored, God’s thoughts are greater than ours. (Isaiah 55:9)

Align yourself with God’s ways of thinking, with His written Word.

It’s time to forge new, strong, healthy relationships with the people we love – and new people God is bringing into our lives. This might require a lot of forgiveness toward others, and even toward ourselves. We’ll ponder forgiveness another day…

 

Truth Seeking

 

Has it occurred to you that some of the things you believe are simply not true?

It’s easy to listen to others and pick out where they’re wrong. (I’m not talking about opinions.)

Look at a moral topic where you’re hearing opposing views, one (or more) can clearly be wrong.

I’m writing today to ask you to CONSIDER that there are things you believe today that are not true.

We have an enemy, and yes – he lies to us. We believe those lies because we don’t recognize them. As a matter of fact, Jesus calls Satan the father of lies! (John 8:44 NIV)

I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but God is tugging at my heart to write about it again.

It might be something easily dismissed because we think we know better; pride might tell us we would never fall for a lie.

But we all do!

Satan is very convincing. It’s his self-appointed job to tear us down, to plant seeds of doubt in our mind, and to convince us that God is not good. He revels in telling us that we aren’t lovable and watches our eyes fall when we believe it’s true. Then he piles on more self-debasing thoughts.

He’s subtle and sneaks in “little lies” that don’t seem to matter. But they begin to pile up in our mind and before you know it, we’re believing some seriously big lies.

The Bible tells us, “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; [but Jesus says] I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” – John 10:10 NIV

We’re warned!

But most of us don’t understand just how sneaky and treacherous he is. He hates you simply because God loves you. And that’s the biggest truth he tries to hide from you - that God truly DOES love you. Satan cannot stand it that God loves you and he fights to keep you from believing it.

He doesn’t want us to believe that God is good. We can come up with too many evil things in the world – and Satan wants us to attribute them to God, not him.

God. Is. Good.

How can we recognize these lies?

The ONLY way is to talk with our heavenly Father and ask Him to show us the lies we’re believing.

He wants to show us. He won’t show you everything at once, that would overwhelm us.

He’ll reveal them to us as He walks us through them, showing us in His Word, HIS truth, the absolute truth. Jesus said, “I AM the Truth.” (John 14:6 NIV)

Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to this world (don’t believe the lies of this world), but to renew our minds. Our minds NEED renewing!

When we become His child, we turn from the lies of this world and wash our minds with the Word of God.

NOTE: We won’t recognize lies if we don’t know the truth.