This week in my Institute class the professor started out the lesson by talking about the differences in how men and women communicate. For example, to women, nodding shows they are paying attention. Men think they are agreeing, which leads to misunderstandings. We discussed how even though we speak the same language, our communication is different. He applied this to the language of the Spirit. We must work hard to be able to really communicate with God, just as we have to work hard to make sure we have effective communication with each other. In fact, we should put the same effort into learning the language of the Spirit as we would learning a foreign language.
What am I going to do with this? I will work harder to understand how others communicate so I can effectively communicate with them. I will also put more work into understanding the language of the Spirit and having more effective communication through prayer.
Elder Scott's talk at the regional conference last Sunday (9/14/14) here in Provo also discussed communication through prayer, and is similar to this talk he gave in the LDS Conference in October 2009: To Acquire Spiritual Guidance
This is a lesson I have slowly been learning over the past two years. This shows the level of value you put on other people. By paying more attention to what messages people are trying to get across, I have found that I am more fond of a lot more people! It also helps me to show them not more love, but the right kind of love based on their individual needs
ReplyDeleteHow Interesting!
ReplyDeleteI never thought that something so subtle, as a nod of the head, could mean more than "right." That's what I have always assumed it to mean. It's good to know that many things in the realm of body language can easily be misunderstood. That's why it is so imperative that we focus on what we are saying and doing, so that we may convey the correct message! We don't want to me misunderstood and have everything taken the wrong way!
Thanks for this post, it was great.
Scott
This was a really fantastic blog post. I especially liked how you talked about how we need to dedicate ourselves to understanding the Spirit just like we would dedicate ourselves to learning another language.I think that the Spirit can talk to each one of us differently and that it is so important to learn how Heavenly Father likes to communicate with us.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is definitely a helpful tidbit to know about the girl head nod thing haha. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for that.
This is a great insight. Communication is something that is part of our daily life, and its important to remember that we must work in order to understand what others are saying to us. Communication is so much more than the words we say. I like how you tied it to the Spirit, I think it is important to ask the Lord how he will speak to you as you look for answers to your prayers.
ReplyDeleteGood post Sean! It really is interesting how different people communicate in so many different ways! Communication is a really important aspect of this life and I think that everyone can work more on their communication skills.
ReplyDelete