Communication Inhibitors – In my counseling experience there can be many reasons why a passive person chooses not to talk. Additionally, these same reasons can similarly apply to the harsh/mean speaking person. I’ve listed at least six reasons why a person chooses not to imitate God by communicating. These are also my sinful temptations as well.
Stubbornness -
This is self-centered unwillingness. This is what we hope God will never do to us. It would be horrible should God “bow up” and determine to treat us in willful stubbornness the way we can treat others. One of the ways this can work out in my communication is my refusal to say I’m sorry, to confess my obvious sin or to pursue my wife’s constructive observations of my life.
Intuitively I know my wife knows things about me that I may or may not be aware of. What she knows could really serve me in my personal walk with God. But sometimes I can be very stubborn and not pursue her by humble question-asking. It is in these moments that my thoughts of myself trump my concern for God’s thoughts about me. I stubbornly resist this means of grace that God has brought into my life.
Apathy -
It is helpful to use bible language when thinking about categories. Apathy is not a solid bible category, though you can see this attitude in the personalities of the bible. A more biblically precise word would be hatred. An apathetic person is acting out in what the bible would understand to be hatred. Apathy is the “I don’t care” attitude. This is not a passive or neutral attitude. It is an active attitude and the attitude is hatred, or lack of love. If you don’t actively love me, then you are actively hating me whether you want to dress it up by calling it apathy or not.
If my son was in a traffic accident and was dying by the roadside and I walked by and said “I don’t care that you are dying” it would be hatred. Though not as physically damning as the illustration I just used, not to speak into someone else’s life is selfish hate.
Anger -
This attitude of heart is not as dressed up as apathy. It is hate acted out. But I’m not speaking so much about the exaggerated versions of anger that we may understand as road rage, murder or physical abuse. Though it could be those, the kind of anger that we typically experience more often would works out in what is commonly called the “silent treatment.”
Anger is a spectrum behavior. On one end of the spectrum is murder. That is the worse case scenario. As Christians we do not do that. However, we are not excluded from being angry. Therefore, we use a more civilized and tolerated form of murder that is called the silent treatment. In one sense, they both accomplish a similar goal. Murder says, “You do not exist because I removed you from this world.” Silent treatment says, “You do not exist because I have removed you from my mind and choose not to talk to you.”
As sophisticated Christians we can live for years with this kind of “low-grade anger” of non-communication. And we can be somewhat justified by our anger because we are not acting out like some of the people we hear about on the news. This is a very proud person, hiding in his quietness, justifying himself with false humility, while harboring anger.
Fear -
This is typically a motivator that I cannot fully develop here. I’ll just take one angle on this potentially life-dominating sin. Fear is a code word for a person mired in self-absorbed thinking. A fearful person is not a trusting person. A fearful person is more focused on self than God. God says, “Trust!” Jesus asked Peter to get out of the boat and walk on the water with him. Peter, in the moment, was all about himself and was wrapped in fear. As he repented of his fear he did get out of the boat and walked with God.
If he had chosen to stay in the boat, twisted in paralyzing fear, then he would have chosen the way of self rather than the way of God. Fear is a foundational sin that can manifest itself in so many ways. And one of those ways is not to expose yourself by communicating the thoughts in your head. A teen, in a group, could be tempted to fear others and choose not to communicate her thoughts. A husband could be tempted to be fearful by not being vulnerable before his wife. He chooses not to communicate his weaknesses, struggles and temptations. He chooses to yield to fear rather than trusting God in the moment.
Ignorance -
A person can be willfully ignorant of God and God’s ways even though he may be a Christian. He is about self and it hasn’t really occurred to him how his lack of communication is hurting his family. The power of words or the power of the lack of words never really registers to him. And when his daughter who has been waiting for 10 years to be loved, nurtured, affected and cared for by his kind, loving and wise words becomes pregnant. He is clueless. He does not see how she waited and hoped until hope was dashed. And then a young man came along and “swept her off her feet.” She was an angry teen looking for love in all the wrong places, in large part because of a dad who was so into himself and ignorant of the damage he was causing, due to his lack of words.
Or he wakes up one day to a rebellious teen son who is full of anger and is now shopping his affection in video gaming, drugs, girls, work or whatever he can find for a modicum of encouragement, as he is reacting in anger toward his non-encouraging, non-speaking dad.
Arrogance -
Code word here is self-righteousness. This person looks down his nose toward others. There are certain people he doesn’t like. He is isolating himself in some way from his culture. Many times it is a select group of people he chooses to hate. He loves thin people, who are active, as opposed to obese people. He likes heterosexual people, but carries a disgust for gay people. He likes those who can carry a conversation of depth, but the shallow, simple or self-important he harbors resentment. Or even more insidious is the person who withholds his affectionate and encouraging words from his family because he simply chooses not to talk.
Major Caveat!
How is your heart right now? Are you tempted to think of someone you know who is like this? Are you married to such a person? Do you have a parent described above? How is your heart right now? If you are tempted to sin as you reflect on the guilty, then I want to remind you of the Gospel. Christ came to save sinners and you are one of those sinners. You are no different than your non-talking friend.
Your friend may not be meeting your expectations, but you put Christ on the Cross. I killed Christ. It was because of my sin that Christ was nailed to the Tree. If I’m the worst sinner that I know, which I am, then I can re-focus in this moment and love my sinning friend in similar fashion to how Christ loved me. The Father did not throw me under the bus for my sin. He died for me! I did not get what I deserved. I got grace. That’s the Gospel! I trust this good news will affect you in practical ways as you reflect on your friends.
Other Related Articles in this Series
- Communication 101 … Talk Trouble
- Communication and the Universal Mute
- Communication Inhibitors
- The Case of the Silent Partner
- Doing it in the dark
- You Can’t Handle the Truth – Jack Nicholson
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Back when Lucia and I had a general dislike for each other, we found talking to be a chore, particularly around things that mattered. As I have written in other places, I did muster the courage to shoot the “pink elephant” in the room. I told her that I did not like her, that I did not have a clue about how to lead her, and that I was not real sure I wanted to lead her.
