Divine Design - Winning Communication

I am loving our series at Skycrest right now. Studying God's Divine Design for the family is extremely informative for me, but it is also inspiring. It never fails that a series like this helps motivate me to open the doors and clean out some neglected, cluttered closet in my life.

Looking at God's word about the family the past three weeks has done just that. I have reevaluated some of the bad habits I have formed and begun to tolerate as just the way it is; or just the way I am; or just the way it's going to be, etc. While it can be, and has been, painful to identify things that need to change, the hope of change keeps me going in spite of the humiliation of having to admit the need.

Last week was particularly difficult. I was studying about communication and in particular LISTENING. Ugggghhhhhh! You know how people say, "Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness." Well I generally agree with that, but as it relates to my listening, my greatest weakness is my greatest weakness.

The pain of this week's study has been somewhat akin to putting iodine on an open wound. It's supposed to burn for a minute and then be all better. But it's a minute that goes on and on like the Energizer bunny. What I'm trying to say is that learning the truth about listening has been painful, but hopefully is has been a good pain that will prove to be productive as I seek to be a better husband and parent.

If you were unable to be there this week, let me just encourage you to go to www.skycrestfamily.org and listen to the podcast called Divine Design: Winning Communication. It will certainly be worth your time because it will no doubt pay dividends for your family.

Let me share a couple of the points I uncovered through study that stuck me and have stuck with me.

The first one that I am still grappling with is the question that John Maxwell poses in his book The Winning Attitude. In his chapter on listening he asks: "Would you rather be interesting and impressive or interested and impressed?" OUCH! Honestly, I've spent my entire life trying to be interesting and impressive. Now I'm wondering if I accomplished anything more than making myself irrelevant.

The second observation that has been so poignant to me was a statement made by the German-American theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich. He wrote, "The first duty of love is to listen." Yikes. I only wish I could disagree, but I can't because I feel important and loved when someone listens to me.

The reason this hurts so much is because the little people in my life who need me to listen talk incessantly and say very little. For instance, they make up plays for basketball teams that wouldn't work in 100 years, and it takes almost that long to explain them. They talk about wanting things that I could never provide, and obtaining things that Bill Gates couldn't afford. These things matter so much to them and so little to me. But these precious little chatterboxes matter to me. While I love them with all my heart, I'm not sure I am fully engaged with the first duty of love. What if they had to fill out some sort of survey? What if someone told them that they could tell if I love them by the way I listen? I don't even want to think about it but I should.

What hit me this week is that if I don't listen to them now while their saying nothing, they probably won't be speaking to me when they're really saying something.

Are you listening?