Colossians 4:6
“Let your speech always be gracious,
seasoned with salt, so that you may know how your ought to
answer everyone.”
I
may sound here like the old fogey I fear I am becoming, but it seems to me that
there is something missing from many of our conversations these days. Now, I have always been a bit suspicious of
statements that communicate things aren’t like they used to be, as if they were
always better in the past. Constantly
looking at life through the rear view mirror does not give one a healthy
perspective for contemporary living. That said, allowing me just a moment on my
nostalgic high horse, it seems to me that there is less grace in our
conversations today. We seem to make
assumptions that put others at a disadvantage before the first word is ever
spoken. The benefit of the doubt is lost
in the midst of such self-serving, self-absorbed discussion, and dialogue
actually becomes monologue.
The
Message translation perhaps communicates more positively than my curmudgeonly
way. “Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others
in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.” Young, old, yesterday, tomorrow, and
certainly today, that has been, will be, and is now good advice.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of
my heart, be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Amen.
Jim
Abernathy
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