Thursday morning I sat in a breakfast meeting and heard an intelligent and articulate presentation. The speaker was prepared, made good use of slides and seemed to care about the subject. Probably 75% of the presentation addressed a need with supporting facts and statistics. About 20% detailed the difference her organization could make with the problem and the remaining 5% described what they do.
As I listened to the presentation, about 10 minutes into it I found myself silently asking of the speaker, “Why do you care about this?” My silent question kept waiting to be answered for the next 15 minutes. The speaker finished and sat down and I still didn’t know why this issue mattered to her. My unanswered question became a significant filter to my listening and processing.
As a student of communication it occurs to me that the speaker had my interest. The arguments had me inclined to agree with the assessment and recommendation, yet I didn’t really want to personally respond because the “why does this matter to you?” question was not clear to me.
Every week I communicate about faith in Jesus Christ to an assembled group of people. Likewise I find myself making a case and then making recommendations about what to do. But now I wonder how often I’m clear about why this matters to me.
I believe that I have a terminal “illness” called sin. I believe all of humanity shares in this deadly plight. And I believe that a faith relationship with Jesus is the cure for what ails me/us. Therefore, the reason that understanding, accepting and adhering to the Christian faith is so important to me is because I believe that we’re all going to remain “sick” and eventually die an eternal death unless Jesus becomes our cure.
This past Sunday many of you that read this blog entered into an 8 week journey together in order to experience Jesus as the cure. Let’s not miss the core issue. We’re not interested in just treating a few symptoms and relieving life’s pain to some degree. We are after nothing less than miraculous healing that results in our having eternal life.
Let’s respond to all that Jesus is up to with us these days.
As I listened to the presentation, about 10 minutes into it I found myself silently asking of the speaker, “Why do you care about this?” My silent question kept waiting to be answered for the next 15 minutes. The speaker finished and sat down and I still didn’t know why this issue mattered to her. My unanswered question became a significant filter to my listening and processing.
As a student of communication it occurs to me that the speaker had my interest. The arguments had me inclined to agree with the assessment and recommendation, yet I didn’t really want to personally respond because the “why does this matter to you?” question was not clear to me.
Every week I communicate about faith in Jesus Christ to an assembled group of people. Likewise I find myself making a case and then making recommendations about what to do. But now I wonder how often I’m clear about why this matters to me.
I believe that I have a terminal “illness” called sin. I believe all of humanity shares in this deadly plight. And I believe that a faith relationship with Jesus is the cure for what ails me/us. Therefore, the reason that understanding, accepting and adhering to the Christian faith is so important to me is because I believe that we’re all going to remain “sick” and eventually die an eternal death unless Jesus becomes our cure.
This past Sunday many of you that read this blog entered into an 8 week journey together in order to experience Jesus as the cure. Let’s not miss the core issue. We’re not interested in just treating a few symptoms and relieving life’s pain to some degree. We are after nothing less than miraculous healing that results in our having eternal life.
Let’s respond to all that Jesus is up to with us these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment