Dominating the conversation
If you go sit down in any small town café (or probably any big-city establishment) and then just sit and listen for a while you will probably hear someone who is carrying most of two or three conversations.
He’ll be talking the ear off of the guy he came in and sat down with and then interjecting comments into the conversation the waitress is having with the guy drinking coffee at the bar and explaining something to the couple sitting in the booth behind him.
I will not ask for a show of hands to find out how many of us have been that guy, nor will I give him a name. We all know who we are. Besides, the goal here isn’t to take people down, just to make us think about some things.
What I want to consider is what is going on when we have what I heard a singer refer to as a “lopsided conversation?” I can’t help but think that it may mean there is something amiss in the relationship. Now I’m not talking about just an introvert and an extrovert sitting at the same table, I’m thinking of conversation which is clearly being dominated, where one person’s opinions and input are being left out, ignored or trampled on. I think something might be amiss because there I some reasons I might dominate the conversation. It may be that I’m insecure. Maybe I really don’t care about the other person. Maybe the conversation I’m forcing is covering for the conversation that we’re not having but we should. None of those things are healthy.
Now that is clearly no way to manage a relationship – especially one that is supposed to be close. We would probably recommend counseling for a married couple whose communication is consistently lopsided, where one person’s voice is not heard and where ideas don’t matter. That relationship has problems.
Now let’s talk about how we pray.
Is our conversation lopsided? Do we know how to be quiet and listen? Would I know God’s voice if I heard it?
And if our prayer is lopsided, what does it say about our relationship? Are we insecure; do we care; are we avoiding the conversation we need to have?
I want my relationship with God to be right. I don’t want to be the guy dominating three conversations. I’m trying to improve how I listen, but it’s hard to hear sometimes. Clearly I need to be in the word – that is His revelation to man and a certain and reliable place to start. But I’m left with this nagging feeling that there can be more: that I need to be quiet, that I need to not dominate the conversation. I’m trying to spend some of my prayer time quiet. And I’m praying that I will learn to listen.
