God knew the hearts of men from the beginning and Jesus reminded us about our inability to properly communicate with Him. Let's review first Matthew 13, starting at verse 13 and continuing through 17:
This is why I speak to them in parables:
Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
You know, sometimes we just don’t communicate very well. The reasons vary, sometimes because of real obstacles, sometimes because we put up barriers and many times just because we’re not consistently working at it. And how many more times do we fail at communicating with God? Now, have you ever considered the reasons for your life here on earth? I think we all have tasks that God has laid out for us to accomplish so we can fulfill His will. But I also believe that life here on Earth is to train us in His ways. Marriage, raising children, friendships, work and many other aspects of life are God’s way of providing us hands on experience on how to communicate with Him. How many times have you lived through one of life’s surprises only to look back and not only be able to say you learned from it, but to also be thankful for it to have happened? Not to say that you enjoyed it, but that you can now appreciate the experience and use it in future life experiences. God has also provided us many stories in the scriptures that are perfect examples on how communication with him should work and not work. So, here are my thoughts on communicating with God and with each other… One note, I don’t speak from the perspective of success, but from the perspective of failures and lessons learned.
The first lesson we need to look at, communication goes both ways. Thus, it requires both speaking and listening. All of us want to share our point of view, but rarely do we want to truly listen. And I’m not referring to talking and hearing. I mean a type of communication that is deep, personal and real. Husbands and fathers (MEN) are notorious for not being willing to listen. We are the butt of many jokes and stereotypes because of this. We should and must do a better job of speaking and listening. Wives and mothers (WOMEN) are also stereotyped as being ones to do a lot of talking without truly communicating. But I would ask the husbands, wives and children (which we all are to someone); how well do you listen when your spouse, father or mother truly speaks to you? And how well do you share your real and heartfelt emotions. Do you even allow real communication to happen? You know Jesus’ disciples had a hard time listening to what Jesus preached too. And they were with him day and night. The essence of many of his teachings can be defined by love and serving others. And yet, we see in Mark 9:33-35 that even they continued to miss the point and focus on themselves. It reads:
They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."
Even Adam, who walked with God daily, had only one rule to remember so he could stay with God in the garden. But, he failed to listen and understand. So, you may say, “We don’t have God or Jesus with us like they did.” Or do we? God speaks to us in many ways, if we will just listen. The most obvious is via the scriptures. Daily bible reading is important. I’ve learned that it must be more than a few verses here and there. You need to have a plan and a commitment to do this. I recently finished reading the entire Bible in just under 13 months. And I will tell you, it took a personal drive and partners to push me too. With my best reading partner also being my life partner. God also uses others to speak to us. It is important that we are faithful in Sunday School and Worship attendance. And we should always come expecting to hear from God and not a man or woman. Now to speak to God requires prayer. It sounds easy enough and most of us find we are good at prayer when our world comes crashing down around us with medical issues, death, job loss, and any number of other problems. But we easily forget God during the good times or even to praise him when we are blessed with a rescue from the troubles.
That leads me to the second lesson; we must communicate during the good and the bad times. Most of us are more likely to share during the good times and withdrawal during the bad times. Our society trains us to be that way. There are whole industries in the US based on celebrating the good things in life. Ponder some of these: Weddings, baby births, job promotions, graduations, birthdays, etc. And most of us love to share in our success and excitement. But, it is just as important to communicate during the not so good times (sadness, anger, troubles). Your spouse, parents or best friend can be a great asset in hard times. Even more so, be willing to be that spouse, parent or friend that can handle listening and discussing the good and the bad. People (especially your kids) need to know that they can safely tell you anything and you will still love them. Listening in love means caring but does not mean actions without consequences. If you look at the history of the Israelites, they continually cried out to God for salvation from bondage, God saved/freed them and they turned away and ended up back in bondage. I myself have tried very hard this past year to not be like this. As I hinted at earlier, last year, my wife’s cancer came back. We were both devastated and fearful of what the future seemed to hold. And OUR prayer life blossomed like a field of flowers in the spring. It even led us to the prayer and healing service our church held. I would even ask strangers to pray for us. I would dare to say that thousands of people around the world saw my cries for prayer and the prayed. And then God allowed the good news to flow in. I have struggled to achieve even a resemblance of the prayer life I had before. I try to stay committed to praying daily and deeply, but it is hard. I have no answer as to why…it just is. I’m just like the Israelites. One thing that is different this time is that I have committed to telling what God has done for us when someone asks how she is doing.
That leads me to the final lesson, communication must be constant! Marriages fail when the partners quit communicating. Children lose direction and make bad choices when parents stop communicating with them. Companies fail without good communication amongst employees. Now sometimes communication stops because of real problems out of our control. But many times we stop because everything is just going well and then we get distracted with other things. I guess we think we don’t need to express the thankfulness and love we have for each other and God when things are good. Maybe they just know. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22:
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.
So how do we learn to communicate with God properly and constantly? I believe God’s perfect plan includes having us learn to and practice that loving communication with each other. Share and listen to the good and the bad at all times. As I mentioned earlier, Jesus continually spoke of loving and serving each other. This was the one true way to love and serve the Father. But how can we love and serve each other without communicating? Men, women and children want to hear us express our love and our pains. Women, men do want to hear too. Just remember, men are fixers! So tell us how we can help or clarify that we should not try to fix anything. Parents, discipline should never cause a break down in communication. Your kids need to know that throughout life, they can come to you about anything without judgment. Kids, your parents do want to know about the good and the bad. Be patient with us, we may be more experienced, but we are still learning just like you!!! If we truly communicate with each other, I believe we are doing it with God too. As Jesus said in Matthew 25:40,
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
What a wonderful and circular plan God has. To word this in another context, when we learn to communicate with each other, we are also learning to communicate with God. And when we learn to communicate with Him, we learn to communicate even better with others.
So, be on a mission to be the one who speaks and listens to your spouse, kids, friends and even strangers. Plan to do it in good times and bad and at all times. For if we cannot do it for each other, we surely cannot do it with God!
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