Video Challenge Day 6: Talk Talk Talk...

Man:  {babbling on and on about wanting God to chisel in particular areas to help his outward appearance...}

God:  Alright, are you gonna talk or can I chisel?  Talk? Chisel? Talk? Chisel?  Talk? Chisel?

Man: No no no...Chisel!

God:  Alright?  Most of my children just like to talk....

Research shows that on average outside of the workplace, every male speaks about 6,073 words per day, and ever female approximately 8,805. (give, not take a few thousand :)  With an average speaking rate of 120 words per minute, we would spend about an hour and fifteen minutes in non-stop speech taking no breaths.  Have you ever known THAT person?  The one who talked and talked pouring thousands of useless details into a simple answer?  You try to communicate back with them, but you can't get a word in!  I remember back in elementary school we had a girl in our class named Allison.  At one point she was asked a True or False question in a verbal quiz.  She proceeded to answer a TRUE OR FALSE question for FIFTEEN MINUTES!  As humans we thrive on networking, and speech is a huge part of that.  Nearly every activity we participate in, whether eating, shopping, athletic events, or games are centered around vocal conversation.

In the skit, man begins to babble on and on to God about things he has done and tried.  If you watch closely, God opens his mouth in an attempt to speak, but is silenced by the ongoing one way conversation of man.  This convicted me greatly!  How often do we treat our relationship with God like a voice mail?  We call in when we wake up and just before we go to bed and leave him a two minute recording with all the things we wanted to say.  Throughout the day we shoot God a quick text while we're on the road and before we eat, just to remind him of the things we mentioned earlier and maybe something that new that popped in our minds.  God patiently listens, but desperately longs for us to open the Word so he can speak back!

The statement, "Most of my children just like to talk" is SO true.  The challenge is this:  Average it out.  How many minutes per day do you spend talking to God as opposed to how many you spend allowing him to talk back?  John 10:27 says that God's sheep KNOW his voice.  If you struggle to recognize the voice of God, maybe it's because you haven't given him the chance to talk in a while. Talk? Chisel? Talk? Chisel? Talk? Chisel?