I am passionate about good, effective, excellent communication. I am convinced: good communication can bring life and joy. Bad communication can bring death and sorrow. 

So what does good communication look like in your marriage, in your friendships, at your work, or with your neighbor? It looks like effort, empathy, and trust.

EFFORT 

I am an introvert, so I don’t usually think of talking as energizing or refreshing (unless I’m preaching!). Small talk in particular is not something that comes easy to me. So I’ve had to learn to have a conversation. My wife, Alissa, has taught me everything I know and that’s because she DOES love to communicate! Yet, communication is something more than saying something.

Saying something is easy. Communicating is more difficult, but in the long run more fruitful. 

If I say to Alissa, “Babe, you look beautiful,” but say it without looking at her or in a rush, what am I communicating behind what I’m saying? That I don’t see her, that I don’t notice her. Communication is the effort put in behind what I’m saying. It equals my words plus my actions. It means there is no separation between my words and my actions.

When Jesus says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18), is he saying words or is he communicating something more with/in his words? The effort behind what he is saying is massive: he is investing himself into his words. He will live and die and rise again to communicate this to us. So we are not saying only the words to our spouse, “I love you,” or saying only the words to our neighbor, “we are here to serve you”. We are with great effort investing ourselves into our words. We communicate with our very lives.

Talk is cheap when there is no effort behind what is said. As disciples of Jesus we believe with/in our heart—with/in our thoughts, emotions, desires, words, and actions—that God’s grace in Christ was not cheap, but costly. As such we can’t communicate the gospel of costly grace without pouring our lives out in a real and tangible demonstration of it to those around us. 

Dallas Willard used to say, “Grace is opposed to earning, but not to effort.” This kind of communication is not for the fainthearted, the rushed, the self-centered, the disinterested. It is for those who are willing to do the hard work of laying down their lives for others by the grace of God.