Communication – Part 2
Communication is a must for developing relationships with our wife, husband, children, colleagues and friends. In the last chapter we looked at the four essential proponents of communication. I would like to look at how it is essential to build common interests that in turn helps to have meaningful communication. In other words, the more we have in common the more communication we can have.
My wife and I were in Finland on the Operation Mobilization’s ship M/V LOGOS II. There I had a great time with the leadership of the ship. We had real communication because of our common interests. Having previously lived on the OM ships I knew the problems as well as the blessings in the ministry onboard.
It is stated that 50% of marriage will be without children. One of the reasons for divorces among people who have been married for 30 years or more is because after the children are grown there are no other common interests and if both parties have gone their own way in interests, divorce is a sad reality.
For many couples, when the children were at home the common interests understandably were with the children, but after the children are gone if husbands and wives don’t have any other common interest there is the natural tendency to separate. How much do we have in common with our children, spouses and even people in our own fellowships?
One of the things that we need to do is move towards more involvement with one another. One would think that this should be easy within the family of God and that there would be many things that we could be involved with, but often this is not the case!
There are some things that we as God’s people should have a common interest in: God’s Word, prayer, worship, world evangelism, all the things that pertain to God and who we are in Him. We all should have this in common as our firm foundation in our life, but there are also other things in life, other than our children, that as husbands and wives – we have as common interests; things we enjoy doing together, that interest us.
When I was the director of Operation Mobilization’s ship, the M/V DOULOS, people often wanted to know how we could have unity with such a variety of people. Among the 300 people on board we had people of 40-50 different nationalities, different denominations, different upbringing, etc., yet in the midst of such diversity we had a tremendous unity because we had a common interest: world evangelism, and this brought us together so that we were able to overcome all the different things that could have separated us.
One of the things breaking up families today is that among the different family members there is no common interest. Each member has gone their own way and developed their own interests, and consequently there is a lack of communication; then relationships suffer and are hindered from growing strong.
One of the things that I am learning is that it takes time and effort to develop common interests, and this is a must in order to be effective in communicating with one another.
Might God give us creative ways to develop common interests within our families, with friends, etc. in order to be effective communicators.