Ziklag 4.20 - Make Good Distinctions

SOS, Talk Them Into It

SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader

Wisdom goes back to face forward. Folly rages with instinct. cf Pr. 29:3

Even evil needs to make good distinctions in order to succeed. cf Mt. 7:10

Measurement is a matter of space. cf Sun Tzu 4.17

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From Today’s Stack

Good Questions are Good Medicine

from Talk Them Into It 2.0

All conversation is low stakes diplomacy, and all diplomacy is a matter of:

1. An exchange of information with,

2. Potential for ulterior motive, but

3. Consistent enough trust to foster returns.

No one long remains friends with a fellow who never follows through. If you lie 7% of the time, most people will notice. The leech has two daughters: More and Please.

The goal of friendship, the reason for conversation, is to develop trust. Because of trust, we are able to conjoin. Our defenses go down, our leisure comes up, and we become something more longstanding than acquaintances.

The problem of ulterior motives and lost trust falls under the Biblical category of sin. All people have biases, but a Christian must assume that unbelievers have a special spirit of self-deception at work that can only be termed diabolical. It is not so much that all non-Christians are demon-possessed, as that all natural born humans are devil-tormented and only Christ Jesus has the authority to change that.

Therefore, the path of the carnal man is quite divergent from Glory. Jude, the brother of Jesus, tells us, “Whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.” This is not a pleasant thought.

Every time a Christian opens his mouth, all creation listens with stilled voice. The angels know that we have the power to speak the Word of God, and they eagerly long to look into such things. As a Christian, the discipline of your tongue is the goal of glory. You are God’s mouth here. You are the bringer of the Song.

The practice of speaking the Word of God in your life is the true worship of Jesus according to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This in His reign of praise, His rule of prayer, His gift of gratitude.

All people enter conversations in search of the best and most reliable information. But, whether they know it or not, what most people are really after is attention. Isolation, loneliness and the dark sadness of worldly life hungers for justification. As the world passes by, a smiling face and a calm voice are always remembered well.

Few things are more charming than honest curiosity, and nothing shows you are paying attention to someone else like a well formed question. Friendship is formed first by shared perception. Sharing and remembering answers, then bringing those shared truths to bear later in time, is the knowledge by which me becomes us. Hearing each other’s stories, sharing our memories, we belong.

We humans crave belonging, and for good reason. Belonging is what God created woman for: family! But, cursed as this age is, many people, both unbelievers and believers alike, are belonging-starved. Even those who are not will instantly appreciate the way you make them feel welcome, they way you take a genuine interest in what they have to say, and the way you apply that knowledge in kind words and actions later.

None of this is manipulation. Christians need not control others. Rather, the Christian is baptized to see more than others do, and then to do good with that insight.

Seeing others more clearly than they see themselves is the refining fire of patience. Many people are poorly behaved. Rudeness is ingrained. Sitcom spirituality lurks in dark and constant cynicism.

The Christian mission is to benefit and build up all, and at all times. We are light in the darkness, salt for the earth, a foundation stone that can never be moved. This is not of us but to us, not from us but calling us, not only without but now alive within. The Word become flesh inhabits us.

Now, our new place in this corroded world is as diplomats. Disciples of the Mast. Tale-Bearers of True Exchange. Built on the great atonement of the Lamb, through the sheer power of trust that all our failings are covered bi the blood of Jesus, now the Holy Spirit is poured out into the Church by means of genuine self-control.

Self-control is not faith, but willpower.

Whatever may have been said in the past about the power of decision, Jesus Christ has empowered you to make good decisions now. This does not mean you are a font of wisdom by nature, nor that you will never get it wrong. Rather, that in a Spirit of repentance you will continually seek the better Way of Jesus Christ according to the Bible. This will have the inevitable net gain of imputing consistency into all your worldly relationships.

Making the decision to ask the Master for more integrity, for more patience, for more powerful self-control is the kind of prayer that always works. From baptism on, ensuring that your “yes” means “yes” and your “no” means “no” is the definition of biblical integrity and the power of the commandment against lying. Others around you may wallow in the muck, but walk in the dignity of the Son of God. You stand, and having called on the One who is able to make you stand, you stand firm.

Believing that the world will know we are Christians by our love is to learn to pray far an ever better way, to seek after an ever more worthy exchange in the present, to grow everything about who you are on the very and everlasting Words of Life given to us in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.