Love Completely: Revealing Your Heart March 5, 2010

Love Completely:

Revealing Your Heart

March 5, 2010

One Month to Live

30 days to a no-regrets Life

by Kerry and Chris Shook.

Principle 1: Live Passionately, Living each day as if it were your last.

Principle 2: Love Completely, showing others love that transcends and transforms.

Principle 3: Learn Humbly, growing through your problems and pain

Principle 4: Leave Boldly, Creating a legacy that will impact generations

Day 15, March 5, 2010—Revealing Your Heart

“Say what you want to say when you have the feeling and the chance. My deepest regrets are the things I did not do, the opportunities missed and the things unsaid.”–Jim Keller

“He became what we are that He might make us what He is.”–Saint Athanasius

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Jeremiah 33:3 NRSV

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. James 1:5

The first thing we pick up in the morning and the last thing we touch at night is our cell phones. We are available to be in communication all day long on the: phone, texting, instant messaging, face book, and email. While it seems we can reach anyone, anywhere, anytime, I wonder how often real conversation occurs. People talk all the time but rarely seem to hear each other’s words, let alone their unspoken messages. Science tells us that 80% of all communication is nonverbal; body language, hand gestures, facial expressions. Just think when we talk on the phone only 20% of what we’re saying is being conveyed.

If we’re going to live as though we only have four weeks left, we have to be willing to move from communication breakdown to communication breakthrough.

Right now in your life do you have a relationship in which the lines of communication are really breaking down? Was there a lack of communication, a miscommunication, or a discrepancy between words and actions?

Lost in Translation

If you’ve ever tried to communicate with someone who’s primary language is not yours, then you know how hard it is to communicate and how much can be lost in translation. This is also true even when we speak the same language. We need to be willing to reveal our hearts and that will be costly. Like an old pay phone, we must be willing to make a deposit into a relationship before there is a dial tone. We must be willing to open our hearts.

Until we open our hearts to those we love, we will never experience a communication breakthrough. We have to risk vulnerability to the point of possible rejection.

How to do we open our hearts?

1. Time: We need to share our time. Relationships don’t work on the laws of efficiency. It costs time to communicate with people. Dates, family trips, meals and celebrations are investments of time that are deposits on communication.
2. Troubles: For others to see our hearts, we have to admit that we have needs. We have to take off our masks and be vulnerable to connect with others.

Beneath the Words

We must also learn to listen before we speak. If you listen beneath the words of those you love, you’ll hear the hurt and connect with them on a deeper level.

It also means to discover what they really love, what their interests are, what they dream about.  All of us want someone who has looked into our hearts—warts and all—and still loves us.

Do you consider yourself a good listener? What prevents you from listening more closely to those you care about? How closely do they listen to you?

Truth Means Trust

Those who are dying, speak the truth. They don’t have time to waste on lies. Great relationships are built on trust and you build trust by telling the truth. Look at Toyota and how much trust they have lost, because they didn’t tell the truth.

God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. Ephes. 4:15

We are called to speak the truth, but also to temper it with grace. How we share the truth is just as important as the words themselves. The truth can be messy, but truth always builds trust and strengthens the foundation of relationships.

Break Through the Static

The closer we grow to God and connect with Him, the clearer our communication with others will become. Ask God to open that person’s heart and to give you the words to say.

God tells us: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Jeremiah 33:3 NRSV

If your relationships aren’t what you want them to be and if you need to work on communicating with the most important people in your life, ask God to help you.

True communication is about connecting, sharing and understanding. We must be willing to risk our hearts and reveal who we really are. We must be willing to listen, to the spoken and unspoken words and dreams of those we love. Ask God to open up the communication channels so that your relationships will grow strong.

Prayer: God, I’m amazed that you’re so personal with us. Your heart is laid bare to us. You’re vulnerability makes our relationship possible. Help me to be vulnerable in my relationships, so we can enjoy a glimpse of heaven on earth. Amen.