Have you ever had a conversation with a friend, employee or coworker only to have them later completely misinterpret what you said?  They completely miss the point of the talk?

What happens next?  You get frustrated and accuse them of not listening, right?

Well here’s the dirty little secret . . .  oftentimes, it’s us, not them.  We weren’t clear.

Clarity is something I work on constantly, trying to figure out if there is a better way to say it, an illustration that is easier to understand or a more practical application of a Biblical truth.

We can have the greatest idea in world . .  but if it’s not clear, if it gets muddled in our delievery, the message is lost.

Work hard to be extremely clear in your communication.  Be too clear.  Oversimplify and repeat when necessary.

Ask those you trust at work or in your social circle if you are clear when communicating and if not, work on it.

You have too many good things to share, too much wisdom to impart and too many lives to touch to not be clear in your delivery.

Most people hate detail work.  I know I do.

They hate going over the little minutia to make sure everything is perfect.

Not everyone is cut out for detail work.  That’s fine.  But someone has to do it.

If not, you end up with a great sign that says “BMUP.”

My guess is that it took the road crew a good deal of time to paint this and probably cost a good deal of money to do it.  The goal was good, to alert people of the upcoming speed bump.

The greatest of intentions can be undermined by missing a detail.

Details matter.  Even the smallest ones.

That’s a question I like to ask myself sometimes.  What are you doing that is bothering someone else?  Why is it bothering them?

Before I lose you completely, let me be clear: I think being edgy for the sake of being edgy is ridiculous. Shock for the sake of shock . . . I can’t stand it.

Shock that is intentional, changing things that are broken, pushing the envelope, making people uncomfortable and forcing them to stretch, etc . . . I love it!

So let me ask again, who are you bothering?

Here’s why I ask.  Recently I was reading through the Book of John and I noticed that the only people that Jesus seemed to bother on a consistent basis were the super-religious folks.  They couldn’t stand him.

He did weird things, didn’t obey their traditions and differed greatly in his methods.  And guess what?  They hated it and eventually killed him for it.

Now it wasn’t people that were “far from God” that persecuted Jesus.  It wasn’t the folks that didn’t know anything about God or had given up on “religion.”  It wasn’t the ones that today many would consider “lost.”

Not at all.  It was church folks.  It was the folks that sit in the pews every week, loving their tradition and their music, loving the size of their “comfortable church,” loving the power they have on their committees, the votes they get to cast, and on and on and on.  It was the ones that make church all about “them” and completely miss the heart of God for a broken, hurting world.

When church becomes about “us” and not about fulfilling the task given to us by Christ, we join the ranks of those that would be “bothered” by Jesus.

Bother the wrong people and you miss out what God want’s for your life . . . bother the right people and God will use you to change the world.  Here’s the catch: only God can show you the difference.