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 our marriages, in our friendships, in our work places, with our neighbors, in our church? It looks like effort, empathy, and trust.

TRUST

There is nothing, perhaps, so sweet as the knowledge that the one who is speaking to you is trustworthy. Nothing undermines or reinforces communication like trust. Why? Because we cannot separate our words from our person.

Every word has an entire history behind it. If I say to Alissa, you can trust me, or I’ll be home on time, or I love you, she not only hears what I say, but in that moment knows whether or not my actions have been true to my words in the past. If we don’t listen to each other’s words, it may be because we don’t trust each other’s heart. As disciples of Jesus, if our community, if our neighbor, doesn’t listen to our words, it may be because they don’t trust our heart. But if they can trust our heart, then they will trust our words.

A man is his word. A woman is her word. A church is its word. God is his Word: I AM who I say I AM. Since God’s words are an extension of himself to us and to the world, both in his written Word and in his Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, then our words are an extension not only of our ourselves but also of him who is alive, living, and being formed in us. 

May we be true, always true, to Jesus. Let there be no separation between nor disintegration of who we are and who we are in him. Let us be united to Christ as his disciples, as his church. Let our lives be marked by the integrity of his word and action. Let our lives be full of the life and joy of the Father, Spirit, and Son.

God dwells in the happy land of the Trinity—the Father, Spirit, and Son living in unbroken communication/communion with each other. The only time God ever knew silence, interruption of communication, brokenness of communion was on the cross. It was there that Jesus endured full separation from the Father’s communion. It was then that he was cut off completely from the life and joy of God. It was his death for our sin. It was him so that we might never know the total absence of God from our lives. 

On the cross Jesus opened up the way for us to enter into the unbroken communication/ communion of the life and joy of God forever. He brings us in. Our communication of the good news, then, is the outflow of that active and living relationship we now have with God. Communication is life. Let us open our mouths and hearts wide and ask God to fill us again and again.