Conversation
Habits of the household • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro
Intro
A few weeks ago we had some friends over at our house. They were friends we haven’t seen in a while. They live in California. We tried to get them to move up here, but to no avail. One night, we grabbed some ice cream, and sat around the couch and began to talk. We talked about what’s keeping them in California. Can’t be the organized running of government or wise spending of state money. So what in the world was it. We started talking about pro’s and con’s of moving or staying. And all of a sudden, the wife, says in public, I can’t stand his work phone. That thing is keeping him from spending time with me and his daughter. . . At that moment there was this mixture of all sorts of emotions. I feel hurt for the wife because she feels she’s taking a backseat to the phone in her husband’s life. I feel sad for the kids who aren’t getting as much of their dad as they could get, I’m embarrassed for the dad, who without warning, now has his “dirty laundry” out in the open. And I feel awkward because of the whole situation. There’s a part of me that wants to suddenly go iron my socks. But that’s not true friendship or real conversation. So for the next hour or so we deep dive into why things are the way they are and how to get to a better place.
Conversation is the rhythm of the household that turns family into friends, and friends into family. Conversation—inside and outside of the household—is the learned art of friendship. But you cannot learn the art without practice, and that takes the habit of finding rhythms of one-on-one conversation.
Conversation in the Bible
Conversation in the Bible
There’s quite a few conversations recorded in the Scriptures. One of the first conversations is between Adam and Eve and God.
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
Two principles worth noting:
In our fallen state, we tend to hide from conversation rather than engage in it.
In our fallen state, we tend to hide from conversation rather than engage in it.
It is harder to fellowship with others under the weight of our sin.
1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
God gave us an example of pursuing conversation, even when we are in the right.
God gave us an example of pursuing conversation, even when we are in the right.
We do the opposite when someone does us wrong. . . we call it the silent treatment. very effective at getting us nowhere. Adam and eve wanted to hide from conversation because of their shame. But God lovingly pursued.
God was the one who was wronged, and yet he was the first to mend the relationship. Isn’t that the opposite of how our flesh operates? When we are wronged, we say, “well, it’s their responsibility to apologize to me because they did me wrong.” There’s this idea that they should feel sorry before we forgive them, or we should make them pay by withholding conversation from them. Maybe we want to sit and stew and feel sorry for ourselves because we have been wronged. It’s something only the Holy Spirit can do, to look past where we have been wronged and pursue forgiveness and reconciliation.
What’s the point? We cannot have good friendships without have a good friendship with God.
If we neglect the daily walk with God, our walk with others is going to be hindered. The way I treat others, is in direct correlation with my relationship with God.
Pursue one-on-one conversations
Pursue one-on-one conversations
Make space for one-on-one conversations
two ideas
Take your child out for breakfast on their birthday, bring a journal and ask them questions. Give them the gift of being pursued in conversation.
What is your favorite food?
What is your favorite game?
What is your favorite story Mama reads you?
What's your best wrestling move?
Favorite animal?
It's almost all silly and descriptive, and yet, as I jot down the answers and look back at them, I see in their eyes the pleasure of being pursued in conversation.
As some of the kids have gotten older,:
What do you love doing?
What's hard about life right now?
Who is your best friend?
What do you think you're good at?
What do you want to get better at?
When do you feel nervous?
What's your favorite book?
What do you find yourself praying about often?
What do you think about when you lie in bed?
What do you wish you were allowed to do that you're not?
Write a letter to your kids to give them when they are older.
Use bigger words, share your own fears and advice, or describe what you are going through when they were five and they didn't know that parents "went through" anything. Tell them about who they are and about who you are, and
wonder aloud about who you see us all becoming. In the letters, talk to them like a friend. Because at the end of things, that's what I hope we become.
While these things are nice, they create rythmes and habits that we can use in our everyday moments. HEre are some other key moments in our life when we can have converstation with our kids
In the car
In the car
no screens, space to process things while going from something to something else.
Early mornings and late evenings
Early mornings and late evenings
moments outside the norm, Haven not going to sleep and us sharing a snack and talking, or Harmony waking up early and going with us to drop off Haven.
Third things
Third things
Having something else to do that brings us close and gives us an opportunity to talk while being engaged in something else.
Special outings
Special outings
The large the family, the harder it is to have one-on-one moments with everyone. It’s hard, and it has to be very organized and planned out. But it’s a fight worth having. Even if Linsey were to have a one-on-one moment with each of her children once a day, there wouldn’t be enough days in the week to get everyone in. But have special outings with the kids, it can be a bike ride, or a car ride, or a trip to the grocery store. But seek to engage your kids in one-on-one moments of conversation. Model to your kids what God models to us, Pursuing conversation.
Model Vulnerability
Model Vulnerability
James 5:16 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
You know what it takes to confess faults to others. . . vulnerability.
Where did this idea come from that we have to portray ourselves as someone who doesn’t struggle or someone who has it all together? It comes from our own fallenness.
When we are vulnerable, it shows humility.
We have the unique opportunity to use conversation to walk our children through the messiness of life. Kids and teens are usually honest when a parent is honest first. A child is vulnerable because a parent is vulnerable first. A child engages in conversation because a parent seeks it out first
Psalm 32:3 “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old Through my roaring all the day long.”
This verse was written after David had sinned with Bathsheba. For a year he kept silence. It wasn’t until Nathan the prophet pointed it out that David came clean. But David was miserable until then. His bones waxed old while he kept his silence.
Conversation takes the fires of our own fallenness and turns them into the fires of God’s refining grace. And so often it comes through the grace of conversation.
Go back with me to that conversation we had a few weeks ago with our friends. You know what happened after that conversation? We became closer friends. I asked my friend the next day what his takeaways were from the conversation the previous night. He said, yeah, I’m going to be much more conscious of how much I’m on my phone from here on out. Just talking through it, helped reveal how much of a problem it had become.
