Communication is the vital glue that bonds and builds a marriage.
Three simple but powerful principles in communication are talking, listening and understanding.
Talking is not the opposite of silence. Talking for the sake of talking is not effective communication. Communication needs to reveal with reasonable certainty how the other person feels about a given action or situation. It is an expression of thoughts and feelings.
God tells us in Ephesians 4:15 to speak the truth “in love.” The traveling energy of communication “in love” has a profound effect.
In order to deepen our ability to talk, we need to examine five levels of communication.
Level 1: Cliché conversation. This is where a person hides behind the safety screen of clichés and small talk. Here there is no personal sharing. For example, “Looks like it is going to rain” or “How are you today?”
Level 2: Reporting facts to others. In this kind of conversation, no personal views enter into the discussion. Facts are quoted like a newsreader.
Level 3: Expressing ideas and judgments. Here is where some real communication begins. The person steps out from his safety screen, giving his ideas and judgments.
Level 4: Expressing feelings and emotions. Here the person begins to share genuine feelings about issues. There can be no truly effective communication in marriage until both parties interact with each other on this level. Without such, neither will know how the other feels on vital issues.
Level 5: Openness and honesty. This is the ultimate level—one of absolute openness and honesty. All deep relationships, especially a marriage relationship, must be based upon honest communication—otherwise the relationship will suffer.
Still, we must keep in mind “speaking the truth in love.” This will create a world of communication that translates into beauty and harmony. In communication, one can create a world of misery. For a marriage to have beauty and harmony, the husband and wife must be committed to speak the truth in all things. Truth with love sometimes also hurts, however, as expressed in a saying I have heard in South Africa, when an antiseptic ointment is applied to a wound, “It hurts good!” Therefore our words should always carry a positive and helpful message.
Words can create or destroy relationships. They make life brighter or darker, spread a great deal of misery or joy, forge a chain of grief or satisfaction.
Words create an atmosphere of good or evil.
Read through Genesis 1:3-31. Continually we read “and God said,” then He concludes, “it was very good.” God’s words in Genesis 1 created beauty and harmony. Do ours?
God spoke to an Earth in tohu and bohu—chaos and confusion. God brought about beauty and harmony, saying, in Genesis 1:31, “it was very good.”
If our marriage has a degree of chaos and confusion, then kind words can heal that problem.
When God speaks, there is always a wonderful result. When Satan spoke, it brought about wholesale misery.
We all need the language of love in our marriage. The traveling energy in our communication produces either unity, harmony and goodness or the opposite. It either builds us up or pulls us down.
Communication experts state that the tone of voice plays a vital role. It has been said words compose 7 percent of the message; tone of voice, 38 percent; and that the other 55 percent is nonverbal communication—body language. Therefore, it is not always what you say that is as important as how you say it—the tone of your voice along with your body language.
The second principle of this vital glue is LISTENING.
Shakespeare wrote, “Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.”James 1:19 states, “[L]et every man be swift to hear.”
A ready listener is often lacking in marriage. Someone said, “Listeners are becoming an endangered species.”
There are three areas that interfere with effective listening:
1. Defensiveness.Thinking of ways to shoot down the comments being made to you. Thinking of all the reasons why you are rightinstead of concentrating on listening.
2. Self-centeredness.Talking instead of listening—interrupting, being impatient or intolerant toward the other person.
3. Physical or mental fatigue.This certainly can dull our ability or desire to listen. The challenge is to listen not only to the words but also to the feelings and meaning behind the words. If a person feels understood, then he or she will be less defensive and more cooperative.
The third principle of this vital glue is understanding.
Seek always to understand your mate. It has been said, “To understand all is to forgive all.” Cause and effect prevails in the glue of communication. All behavior is caused.
God expects us to grow in our marriage to produce tree-of-life oneness.
If we all work on this vital area of communication, regardless of the length of time we have been married, oneness will grow stronger.
At all times, speak to build beauty, unity and harmony.
Think, and act, on these things.
From the Archives: “Tree-of-Life Marriage (Part 4)” Philadelphia News, March 2007