I am passionate about good, effective, excellent communication. I am convinced: good communication can bring life and joy. Bad communication can bring death and sorrow. 

So what does good communication look like in your marriage, in your friendships, at your work, or with your neighbor? It looks like effort, empathy, and trust.

EMPATHY

Saying something to someone involves only knowing what you think/feel. Communicating with someone involves knowing what they think/feel. It is steeped in empathy. Unless a teabag is steeped in water, all its rich flavor and aroma will remain locked up. If you allow your communication to steep in empathy, it will become full of flavor and aroma.

Empathy is putting yourself in another person’s shoes. You might not like their shoes. You might think they’re too ugly, too cheap, too old, too smelly, too small, or too big. But if you really care about what they think and feel, and if you really care about being a good communicator, then you’ll take off your shoes and find a way into theirs.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be communicators of the gospel, not talkers of the gospel. We don’t talk about the good news of Jesus Christ. We communicate it to a needy, broken, desperate, hurting, lost world in the power of the Holy Spirit and the love of God. Anyone can quote John 3:16. Anyone can say God is love. Anyone can make a point. But not everyone will live out John 3:16, will demonstrate God’s love, will make a difference by investing their life in another.

How often we think, “All that matters is that I tell the truth.” No! Good, clear, empathetic communication is second about telling the truth or saying what needs to be said. It is first about seeing, noticing, caring for, knowing, and serving the person you want to communicate with. Good communication, then, is impossible without first becoming a good communicator. There is no communication without communion and no communion without communication. How do we know we’re in the presence of a good communicator? We say things like, “They really know me”. Are people saying this about me? About you? About us?

Good, empathetic communication is attractive. And a good, empathetic communicator communicates in attractive ways. Why? How? Because words come from the heart, and a good heart is attractive and will communicate in attractive ways.

A good heart is full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, empathy, not arrogance, criticism, enmity, anger, strife, jealousy, rivalry, dissension, division, or busyness. A good heart will communicate with words and in ways that are like drops of honey, not with words and in ways that are like sword thrusts. If Jesus and his words, which flow from his heart, dwell richly in us and in our hearts, then it can truly be said of us by others that to them our words are “sweet to my taste” and “sweeter than honey” (Psalm 19:10; 119:103).