Stop talking!!

Stop Talking!! Frederick Mason We all get involved in a situation where the conversation seems so one-sided that you wonder why you bother to listen. Of course, there are times when you need to be a sounding board for a person who just needs to talk, but gosh, some guys are like Time Vampires... they suck all your time when they talk to you. And if you're a Christian, the art of conversation has to be spiritually practiced. You've really, REALLY, gotta be careful what you say. If you're not careful, you could be choking your faith by the words you say. Proverbs 18:17 says, "The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him." Just because you talk alot doesn't mean you're right. Case in point: The other day I was "trapped" in a conversation, with a guy known to talk LONG. I hate being caught up in these kind of talks, because I end up listening to somebody talk about their case for 30 minutes to an hour, and I have to chisel myself in to say a sentence or two, only to have them talk another 30 minutes. It's a waste of time. Anyway, this guy talks to me about God and his faith in Him. Cool, I'm down with that. But I also know this guy is a Time Vampire... it's only a matter of time before he slips into talking about his case... and he does. I believe it was about 5:45pm when he started talking... and talking... ...and talking. Not about his faith, or God... about his case, and all the problems. It felt like pulling teeth to me. Sure, I didn't want to offend him, maybe he needed to vent, but COME ON! After about 15 or 20 minutes, I had to interrupt him to say, "If you believe in God, why talk about the problem?" He should be praising God. I told him, "from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). If you claim to trust God, and speak 30 seconds of it, then turn around and talk 20-30 minutes about the problem, aren't you glorifying the problem rather than God? So, after I told him that, he agreed... then went RIGHT back to explaining the problem. Inside of that time, I tried to cut him off at least twice, but he didn't get the message. How many times did I hear him say, "To make a long story short..." After what seemed to be 7 weeks, I had to lie and say I had to use the bathroom, so he needed to wrap it up. And he did... after another 5-10 minutes. I felt drained as we parted ways, and although he tried to wrap it up in his faith in God, the substance of his conversation clearly was NOT faithful. It was 6:50pm when I walked away from him... time NOT well spent. I told him he has to keep his conversations shorter, and give people an opportunity to talk. It's give and take when you talk with people, but Time Vampires aren't really looking for your advice. They just wanna talk... and talk. Guys, your mouth reveals what's really in you. 5 seconds of faith means nothing compared to an hour of whining. If you're gonna have faith in God, you've got to speak as if you've got the victory. Not once on Monday, and again on Saturday night with days of "woe is me" in between. Look, I get it, I complain too. If you've read my journals, I've whined quite a bit. And to be honest, it's ok. Read Psalms and see how many of those were complaining. God doesn't mind if you vent, but at least talk to Him, and He'd give you strength. Complaining to others doesn't help you, and it wearies the people you talk to. If you really want to change your difficult situation to a victory, trust God, and talk about that If you can't do that, you'll end up being a Time Vampire, sucking the time from people by talking about yourself and your problems. To those people that do that, once piece of advice... STOP TALKING!! Until next time...