“Let your conversation be always full of
grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Colossians 4:6
I find it
difficult to have a conversation with others today. Our ears are filled with the opinions that
fill the air waves all around us. Our
minds are filled with the need to be right and therefore we remain in a state
of competition. Our hearts are filled
with fear, pain, and injustice and therefore we are continually on the
defense. These conditions do not make a
fertile field for good seeds of love and peace to grow.
The line from an
old protest song, For What It’s Worth, comes to mind. “Nobody’s right if
everybody’s wrong”, and from the sounds of the voices all around me,
everybody’s wrong. So I wonder what good
can come from that?
Everyone needs to
have the right to speak what is on their heart and mind and know that they have
been heard. That is all I ask. I don’t need people to agree with what I am
saying or adapt to what I am saying. I
simply want to be heard and I want to be a person who offers that to another.
I have found that
in that spirit of conversation things can come to light and understanding can
occur as the direct result of simply talking to one another, people to people,
face to face. A conversation that is
full of grace and seasoned with salt is inviting and makes me thirsty to hear
more. The more depth I share with
another, the more in common I find I am with them. I become less defensive and more
compassionate. We may leave the
conversation unchanged in our minds but I believe we will be changed in our
hearts. Conversion and transformation
are God’s job. Mine is a conversation
full of grace and a heart full of compassion and love.
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