Dr. Wayne Goodall speaks about the challenges of family communication.

Hello, my name is Dr. Wayde Goodall and I want to talk to you for a few moments about "Family Communication."

All of us communicate, I mean you communicate every day every time you're around another person. You don't have to say a word and your body language communicates. Or when you say things you're communicating or when people say things to you, they're communicating.  So family communication is very interesting because you not only have a husband and a wife but you have children. Or you have parents. You've more people involved in family communication.

Remember that God wants you to communicate effectively but he wants you to communicate in ways that He communicates to us. God is a gracious, God is a forgiving God, a kind God, a merciful God. God is an understanding God. And all of these concepts are important for us to understand when we talk to other people. When we communicate. So when we talk to another person in our family, or someone that is important to us, really every human being is important, have respect. especially in your home. Respect the other person you're talking to. Every person is important and every person should be treated with respect.

And remember that conversations and communication is fluid. It's not just you but it's both people. Or it's more than two people in a room. It's ongoing. Everyone is involved in listening and saying words that everyone understands. So it goes both ways not just what we say but how we listen, how they speak and then how we return what they said to us and we approve or disapprove but we understand. See it goes both ways. And then we want understanding, we want insight form this person and we want to give insight or understanding to that person.
All communication should be honest. We should always tell the truth. God is a truthful God. If you feel like I can't tell the truth, tell the truth. You're never wrong doing the right thing. Sometimes the truth is hard to say when you feel like it could hurt someone. But say it in the right way, in a gentle way, in a gracious way.

You see, communication with families it involves a lot of people. You're more people and there are more opinions in the room. And we need to balance the various needs in our homes with a lot of understanding. A lot of respect we think of each other, what would the children do, what would the individual children think or do, what would each parent think or do.

And sometimes communication can get a little tense. During those times we take a time out until our emotions are in a way that we can control them better. So you might want to sleep on it or say let's talk about this another time when we feel better about it we can think about it a little bit more.

Communication is hard work but the Bible's full of topics on communication. And ways that we can communicate to other people in right ways. People love and need respect. And they need to know that we believe in them. We want to hear their opinion. Even when they're wrong we want to hear their opinion. God hears us and we can be wrong. God's a gracious God and he finds ways to get truth back into our life. What a great life we can have and families are a wonderful gift that God has given us, but they're full of communication needs. Let God help you as you communicate to your spouse or your children.

This is Dr. Wayde Goodall talking to you about family communication.

Closing Thoughts...
I want to thank you for listening to me as I've talked to you about your family. And I also want to remind you that God created your family and God created you. The best way to make your life work is to be connected to your creator. The scripture tells us that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. When you do this you'll get connected to the creator. I want to pray with you right now to be connected to the one that created you and your family. Would you pray with me?

Father, I give my life to Jesus Christ today. Help me to be different. I believe that he died for me and he rose physically from the dead. I ask you to forgive me of my sins. Thank you and I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen

Now if you've prayed that prayer with me and you want to pray even more with another person, hit "yes" on your computer screen and you'll be able to pray with another person. If you have more questions, and all of us have questions, God's good with your questions, I want you to hit another button, "I still have more questions." We would be thrilled to answer you. Thank you for praying with me today.

God bless you. I'm Dr. Wayde Goodall.