Your actions communicate a message. What message do they speak to the people who “hear” your life? Do they speak a message of impatience? Do your actions speak a message of busyness or perhaps of being harried and hurried? Do your actions communicate a message of superiority and/or of condescension? I want to examine briefly the reality that our lives speak constantly to the people around us and the fact that perhaps the message we are speaking with our lives far outweighs the message we are speaking with our lips and our words.
We interact with people everyday (unless you are a hermit, or living alone on a desert island). Our interactions with people are brief, others are longer, some are in passing and merely incidental, others are more deliberate and therefore more engaging. In each and every interaction with other people there are messages conveyed through our words, our eyes, our body language, even through our appearance. Many messages are misheard and misunderstood, but to the person receiving the message that perception to them is reality (whether true or not). This post is intended to get you thinking about (and especially praying about) how your life is lived and what messages you convey.
When I am interacting with people sometimes I think to myself “Wow! That person sure is rude”. And the fact is that if they follow up what I perceive as rude behavior with words about loving people or about their religion, I find myself thinking “If they love people, if they serve God, why did they treat me that way?”. There are other times I think to myself “Wow! That person really went out of their way to help that man/woman/child”, and I find myself appreciative of their kindness. Furthermore if someone says to me later about that person: “So-and-so is so rude and inconsiderate to other people”, I will obviously find myself considering the truth of that claim in light of how I saw them treat another person. In each of these cases, I discover that the message lived is louder than the message spoken.
One of the absolutely most vital messages that I desire for my life to communicate to people is that of love. It is my desire that because people know me then they will know that God is love and they indeed have from and through me both the love of God and my own love towards them. The sad reality is that there probably are people who wouldn’t believe me if I told them that I wanted them to know I loved them. The reason they would doubt my words is because of how they felt treated in a previous interaction that we had. I have treated people with impatience, selfishness and unkindness. It breaks my heart, but the reality here is that some people may not be able to hear my message of love nor listen to my words about my God because I have previously communicated a message of selfishness. And for that I truly am broken-hearted. Sometimes I have known those I have offended. Other times, I have not. But above all I want to communicate love. These are the questions I feel God leading me to in order to teach me to live and communicate a life of love:
- What is going on in their life?
- What is their emotional state because of their current circumstances?
- What are their struggles and frustrations?
- What brings them the greatest joy in their life currently?
- What helps them to know peace and hope?
- Who do they have as a friend, encourager, confidant?
- Do they really know the love of God?
- Do they know every good thing that is available to them in Christ Jesus?
These are just a few of the questions that fill my mind every day regarding the people that I engage in life. But do they know that I love them? Have I taken the time to communicate this message of love? And do my actions reinforce my words or do they contradict them?
Oh Lord, help me to live out the love of God so powerfully to the people around me that they know there must be a God of sacrificial love because I have shown them. Take from me my selfish desires and behaviors. Help me Lord to be your child, filled and empowered by Your Spirit to be a servant of love to the people around me!
Pastor Michael Johnson 