Communication/Miscommnunication

Communication is a key component to our lives and there are so many ways we communicate, sometimes when we may not even realize we are. In a class I teach at work we discuss a study that claims that only 7% of human communication is verbal, or the spoken word. Think about that for a minute. That means 93% of our communication is nonverbal; our facial expressions, our posture, our body language, our tones, and our other actions.

As I thought about that today while riding I realized that I have most definitely gotten myself in more trouble with my tone, facial expressions, and body language than I have with the actual words I’ve spoken. It’s not something I’m proud of and I am trying to work on, but I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

Our state of mind when we hear something and when we read something has an affect on how we interpret what we hear or read. I can think of so many times when I have been a part of miscommunication due to the way I interpreted what I heard or read because of my own state of mind, not that of the person communicating to me. Have you ever read a text or email and later discovered that what you “heard” was not at all what was meant? Have you ever sent a text or email and the receiver has interpreted it in a way other than how you intended it?

Even when we are driving we are communicating by the way we drive; the speed, our attention to the road, whether or not we wave, and using our blinkers (turn signals). That last one, blinkers, is something I notice more and more that drivers are not using when they should be which definitely miscommunicates their intentions. When I’m on the bike I always do the “biker wave” to other bikes I meet, most wave back but some don’t. That is communicating as well. Maybe they aren’t comfortable waving, maybe they just choose not to.

I also noticed that the leaves are slowly starting to fall from the trees. Several farmers are now beginning to harvest their corn which means watching the road for pieces of dry corn cob now in addition to grass clippings and leaves. Additionally it means the deer will be more active as they seek corn that may have been left behind in the fields. These are all nature’s way of communicating that Summer is coming to an end and Fall is on it’s way. I personally look forward to the cooler temperatures and the beautiful Fall colors on the trees that come along with this season.

My mom recently had a problem with her Facebook account. This for her is a line of communication. She has trouble hearing on the phone often and this is a way she and I can communicate, by sending private messages back and forth. We can have the communication without the phone issues. We have an ongoing joke about using the phone, she says I talk too fast and I tell her she listens too slow. She also uses it to post “good morning” and “have a good night” posts and Bible verses that she finds on other sites. If she doesn’t send them out, there are a few of her friends who truly miss them and always want to know if she’s ok. Needless to say I added a message on her page that she was having computer issues so those ladies wouldn’t worry, until we got her back up and running again.

My conversations with God are communication but I don’t hear him in an audible voice. It’s an internal communication through my mind and heart. He speaks to us through His word; the Bible, through prayers, and in other ways. We only have to believe and to truly listen. Reading scripture is like reading emails and texts in the sense that I can read the same scriptures multiple times and get something different out of them each time. This is because of my mood, what I’m going through, and what season of life I’m in when I read them.

Reading them while I was in the midst of raising 3 boys was different than reading them now that they’re all grown. The circumstances of life have an affect on our perception of things. Scriptures can also be misinterpreted due to taking them out of context, ignoring other verses that come before or after that explain how they were intended based on the whole picture. This has caused many to misquote God and to lead others astray for their own benefit.

Each of us must read the scriptures for ourselves and only we can make the decisions for our own life. Other people can communicate their thoughts to us, but ultimately the decisions are our own. I can communicate my thoughts to you through my ramblings, but how you perceive them is up to you alone. I simply am sharing my thoughts and have no power or intentions to change anyone but myself. We are all in this world for a reason and it’s up to us to see figure out that reason for ourselves. For me, I just try to be better today than I was yesterday. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail, but I’ll keep trying until the day He calls me home.

Karen Peck and New River have a song called, I choose Christ and the chorus is as follows:

“I choose Christ when everything around me says give up, I choose faith, I choose to trust to believe He is good. He’ll come through like He said He would every time, oh I choose Christ.”