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But let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. James
1:19)
I’d always thought it was possible to make good grades
and have an active social life - all you needed was a plan. College was like
war, and you had to pick your battles and plan a long campaign. My sophomore
year my plan was this - Make three A’s, one B, and two C’s. This
would give me a 3.5 average (bearly) and allow me to keep my academic
scholarship. My A courses were in New Testament Survey (cake), Western Civ
(also cake), and American Lit II (not cake - but a blast). My B course was
Tennis and volleyball (you had to write a paper to make an A). And My C courses
were Bio 2 (who wants to memorize all the bones of the body and the chemical
process of photosynthesis), and Business Math (cake - but lots of homework).
I knew just how much I had to do to get those grades in those courses, and
did just that much work. For instance, all I needed from my NT Survey workbook
was a 94, so I computed the number of questions in it and did exactly 94%
of them (correctly) and left the rest blank. It was a great plan and provided
me with a great second sophomore semester - until one week before finals
when I got my NT Survey workbook back. In red ink on the title page the grade
94% had been marked out and replaced with a 89%. Beneath it my professor,
Clifton Inman, had written these words:
Barry, you came to us a very good and sincere student. You are letting
some of this slip. Return to your first love.
I was furious. I went to Clifton Inman’s office and demanded to know
just how many questions, I had answered correctly in my workbook. I knew
the answer as well as he did - 94%. “But,” he said, “You
didn’t work hard enough to deserve an A.” I wasn’t going to
argue, and I wasn’t going to beg. I stayed up all night and wrote a
paper for Tennis and Volleyball and raised that grade to an A, keeping my
academic scholarship intact. I hadn’t let the old man beat me.
Clifton Inman was a saintly man and we had been close. I spent my freshman
year helping him at his congregation in Rockport, West Virginia. I spent
a lot of time in his home - he was like a surrogate grandfather. After the
workbook incident we were never really close again. When he died a few years
ago I pulled out that workbook to read the note he had written me. At the
age of 30, I understood fully he was right, and saw them as words of wisdom.
I was not prepared for what I found. The phrase “return to your first
love,” did not end in a period, but a comma. It was followed by the
words, “I say this because I love you very much.”
Luke 22:62 - And he went out and wept bitterly.
I have in my Library over 30 books just about communication, and communication
theory (I even have one by Ed McMahon) - none of them can improve upon James
1:19. Let every one of you be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
Be quick to hear. It is more important to hear than to be heard. The first
act of communication is to listen. We all know it is rude to interrupt a
person speaking with our own words - but how many of us interrupt them mentally?
How often do we turn someone off because we assume we know what they are
going to say? How often do we start formulating a mental response before
someone has finished speaking?
Be slow to speak. Making a message connect, making words express our true
thoughts is hard work. Have we taken the time to choose the right words,
and to consider their cumulative effect?
Be slow to anger. Most of us become angry about what we have merely imagined.
We should never assume we have received any message correctly. We should
never assume we know clearly and perfectly what was in the heart of the
communicator.
I lost ten years of friendship with a man, a mentor who truly cared because
I didn’t listen. What else have I lost?
What have you?
-Barry Bryson
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