Do you ever hear somebody say, “to make a long story short,” and you suddenly understand you’ll probably need to cancel your plans for the rest of the day? I realize I’m not one to poke fun at long stories or the people who tell them. Because this gal? Yeah, I often refer to myself as “over-word-ly.”
Ironically, there are some of us on the “over” side of “wordly” who can still find it rough to listen to any monologue longer than three minutes. Especially if there are no visual aids. If you’re a monologuer and you’d like to keep monologuees tuned in, don’t forget those visual aids. A cartoon. Flannel board, even. Maybe a graph or a pie chart.
Not that I’m always one of the people who has trouble tuning in, but I will admit that I now want pie.
Speaking of pie and trouble staying tuned in, not long ago I opened the microwave and found a piece of pie. Where in the world did that come from? Eventually I remembered I’d put it in there for a quick warm-up—two days ago. Yikes.
In every real way, I really am trying to learn to tune in better. Even without the pie chart. Or the pie. James 1:19 tells me that “Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak,” (HCSB). Boy oh boy, can I get those backwards.
So how can we be “quick to hear” and “slow to speak”? Listen faster, speak slower? Actually, I’m quite sure it’s not a matter of speed. More often we need to simply replace the speaking with the listening.
How many times have I already been putting together some kind of “impressive” response in my mind while someone was still talking? All too often I should still be listening when I let my words take control of my brain and my lips. Letting our words take control is letting our flesh take control. You can bet sin won’t be far behind. Words out of control lead to anger and all kinds of sinful responses on both sides of a conversation. James connects words and the angry responses we need to avoid in that very verse when he calls us to be: “quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger,” and the next verse explains that “man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness,” (James 1:19, 20, HCSB).
Proverbs 10:19 says it well. “When there are many words, sin is unavoidable, but the one who controls his lips is wise,” (HCSB). If we desire to live well—to “accomplish God’s righteousness”—we need to tune in to the right things. We’re not walking in righteousness, nor encouraging it in others, when we let our me-focused words run wild, when we focus on having our say rather than finding ways we can use our words to build up another, and when we let our focus slip away from genuinely caring for the people the Lord has called us to love.
O Lord, may my focus be always on You. Use my words to love others in Your name.
I do want to love others with sweet words of grace, Proverbs 16:24-style. “Pleasant words are a honeycomb: sweet to the taste and health to the body,” (HCSB).
And forgive me if I’m not as tuned in as I should be, but to me, that sounds a whole lot like pie.
