Communication between two people is a tricky thing. The communication can be spoken or written. I am reading, “Moby Dick.” It was written almost 200 years ago in England, so the writing will have some gaps between what Herman Melville meant to say and what I understood when I read it. He is dead, so all of the effort to understand what he wrote is on me. I have to look up the meaning of words and reread passages that make no sense to me. When I talk with Patty, I try to speak so that she understands what I want her to know. If I don’t, she can stop me and ask me questions. Over the years of talking, we should get increasingly more in tune with each other and understand what we are trying to communicate. Over the years of doing marriage counseling, it was surprising to me how many married couples communicate very poorly; they don’t understand each other very well. The reason was that neither worked hard at communicating, speaking clearly, and listening attentively. Over the last 50-plus years of teaching and preaching the Bible, I have worked hard to become a clear communicator of truth. I preached this morning at Jefferson Evangelical Church, and all the while I was speaking, I was trying to determine if my audience was hearing me, that they understood the truth of the Bible, and if what I was saying made sense to them. I work at my teaching diligently. I have operated as a preacher over the years with some guidelines and some laws. A major one is that God must speak through me; he must grant me a special anointing of His Spirit for my words to be life-changing in those who hear. He has conditions established for who He will do that through. I need to meet those conditions. One is that I need to study and prepare well. Another is that I must pray diligently, asking God to work in the lives of the listeners and me as I speak. Another super important rule is that if I am careless when talking to people all week, God will not use me in a thirty-minute sermon. I blow this one so often. I forget and get caught up in the moment and say things in anger and irritation, thoughtless things that are mean and hurt, and allow my emotions to control my words.