I love e-mail.
I like it because you can communicate with people at your own pace.
You can take time to think about what you want to say. You can reply today or tomorrow or whenever. No rush.
And you never have to wonder if someone is free when you e-mail them. You just e-mail them whenever you want, then whenever they are free, they can read it. Then they can respond at their leisure.
And it’s so fast and simple (if you know how to type). Just clickety-click and Send.
You can even spell check and grammar check. You know…look smarter than you really are.
And before you hit Send you can read it over. I’ve seen some of your e-mails. You should read it over.
See, when we write, we ask ourselves, “What do I want to say?”
But we shouldn’t stop there. Before we send it we should read it over and ask, “How will they take this?”
That’s an important question. “How will they take this?”
It’s important, but it’s easy. Just read through your e-mail and try to put yourself in their shoes. How will they take it?
The great thing about e-mail is that you have a second chance. You can rewrite it until you are satisfied they will take it the way you mean it.
It’s not so easy with live conversation.
See, when you write something, you can always delete it. But when you say something, it’s just out there. Our words are like confetti in the wind. Once we speak them, we can never get them back.
I have seen this happen many times in my life. I can be jabbering away, then suddenly I sense the other person “darken.” Even on the phone I’ve felt it. They just cool off. Gary Smalley would say “Their flower closes.” It’s like I verbally meandered off into a mine field and blew myself up.
I’ve tried to learn my lessons over the years, but in the rapid back-and-forth of a conversation it’s hard to say everything in just the right way – and by that I mean in a way that the other person takes it the way you mean it.
It’s hard because it’s awkward if you stop and think before you speak. We think we have to keep the conversation going, bam-bam, back-and-forth. But it’s in that exact scenario that we end up saying something ignorant.
Come on, raise your hand if you’ve ever said something ignorant.
Proverbs 29:20 says it plainly. And I like the King James Version – it sounds more “proverbial.” Here it is: “Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”
I have always been hasty with words. It’s a gift! You can talk yourself out of a lot of trouble when you are hasty with words. But you also talk yourself into a lot of trouble!
So if a man with hasty words is more hopeless than a fool, what should we do?
Think before we speak.
It’s simple, really. But here’s what we do. When we are talking to someone, we are ready to start talking even before they are done! We are so itching to talk that we interrupt them.
So the first step is to actually stop and hear them out. Listen closely. Try to discern exactly what they are trying to say. Not their exact words, because none of us are perfect in our word choice, especially in casual conversation. So listen, and ask yourself, “From what all I know about this person, what are they really trying to tell me?”
Then, after you have heard them out, and after you have taken a couple seconds to think about it, then you can speak.
So it’s a three step process. Listen, think, and only then, speak.
Anything quicker and people will gawk and point and say, “Oh yeh, right there, I ‘seest thou a man hasty in his words!’”
(As featured on Wave 94.1 FM)
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