Text is Toneless

Hello there, my awesome readers!

I was just thinking about the fact that text, whether it be on the Internet, in a letter, or in a text message, is toneless and can be misinterpreted quite easily. I actually lost a friendship over it once. I’m not going to detail what happened, but the gist of it is, I said something, not meaning at all to be mean in any way, she took it the wrong way, and wouldn’t talk to me anymore. We even occasionally see each other-we have some mutual friends-but she refuses to speak to me. It’s really sad-we had a great friendship.

I almost lost a job once as well, because I sent a text message to my employer and she thought my text sounded cold and rude. I reminded her that text is toneless, though, and explained what I meant, and she apologized.

What I’m saying here is, read what you say before you click “Send,” as if you are the other person, the one reading it who doesn’t feel what you feel and isn’t thinking the same thing you’re thinking. This caution could save a lot of stress, or even a friendship.

The Vending Machine

Everyone meets a person like this at least once. They are a great friend at first, but as time passes, they seem to only come to you when they need help with something, or want something from you. You help them, of course, but you are upset by the fact that they don’t talk to you to see how you’re doing-or if they do, they brush off your problems and don’t act like they care. They only come to dump all their sorrows on you, vent at you when they’re mad about something, or when they need a ride. They only call when something bad is happening. We’re always there for them, waiting to assist whenever they call, but they’re not really there for us.

I was thinking about this, and realized that we sometimes treat God this way. We’ll acknowledge that He exists, yes, but only when we want something from Him. When everything is going fine, we have a steady paycheck coming in, our families aren’t suffering any issues, our lives are basically great, we push God to the side. But when disaster strikes, when we get demoted or fired, an argument breaks out at home, we suddenly beg on our knees for God to be with us and fix everything. Doesn’t that seem a bit unfair to you? 

Instead, we should treat God as He treats us-like a true friend, who is always there for us no matter what, even when we treat Him like a vending machine. We should come to Him with our problems, yes, but also with our joys. We need to talk to Him about everything, instead of just begging Him for a new toy.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to ask God for things. But He wants us to talk to Him, converse with Him, be friends with Him. After all, what do you think “relationship” means?