Skip to main content

Pardon the Interruption


   I’ll let you finish but first let me say one thing…


  One of the most annoying and frustrating things to do to someone is to interrupt them.[1]  Nothing makes you feel less important than to have someone take what you said in another direction before you can even get it said.  

  I’ve learned to deal with it by not taking it as an insult but enjoying it for its comic effect.  People that interrupt often sound very senseless and will have conversion that resemble a roller coaster more than an intelligent exchange of ideas. They jump to conclusions so fast it will spin your head and make points so absurd that it is a shame it isn’t a joke.  

  It is hard to make sense, when you don’t know what is going on.

He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.
Proverbs 18:13

   However, the interrupter is becoming a pretty standard player in our world today.  Just watch any news program and it seems they think the only way to make a point is to yell over someone else.  I wonder if all the frustration in our political and social world doesn’t come back to the fact that everyone wants to talk and no one is willing to listen.

   So that makes the command we read in James 1:19 (“This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;”)  all the more important.  If we want to gain understanding and alleviate anger, we have to shut our mouths and listen. Really listen! Not just wait till they stop talking so I can.

  Listen.  Seek to understand.  Then respond. 
 
  Now what were you saying?





[1] I know because everyone I do it to tells me

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

  Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair   It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission.  It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

The Right to Arm Bears

  In the book of 2 nd Kings 2, we have one of the most unusual, violent and curious passages in scripture. It involves the prophet Elisha siccing a couple of bears on some kids that were mocking his bald head.    As a guy that is a little light on top that has been around some surly kids, I can feel for the guy. But seriously a bear attack? On kids? What is going on? ….young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!"  When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 2 nd Kings 2:23-25  It might help to explore the passage a bit more. The baldhead statement: This was an identifying mark of the prophet as opposed to Elijah who was hairy (1st Kings 1:8) a jab to say you are not him. The taunt to go up: Elijah has just been taken into heaven by the Lord a sight seen by ...

The Mighty Gulf

  It is hard to get people on two sides of an issue to come together. Each has their own viewpoint, their perceptive, their own foibles, their own understanding.  To gain any common ground there must be something in common. Something or someone that can bridge the gulf between the two.   Could there be a greater gulf than there was between God and man? How could a holy perfect God find a way to connect to the fallen, imperfect mankind? How can one without temptation connect to those who are beset by it? How could limited mortal beings understand an omnipotent eternal God?   In 1 Timothy 2:5, we read, “ For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus .” The phrase mediator here describes a person that bridges the gap, a go-between. Jesus was one who could stand in both worlds. A perfect holy one who can understand our temptations, a man who would die yet live eternally, One who was God yet became flesh and dwelt among us. ...