Decades ago when I took flight training I learned that flight traffic controllers respond back to pilots at the same speech pace the pilot used upon initiating contact. If I called in with the N number of my plane and spoke rapidly they would rapidly send me altitude and directional heading. If I spoke slowly I got my directions slowly. I made sure I spoke slowly so I did not have to say, “Say again, please.” I seem to process numbers only at a pace that I can visualize them. Thus I have immense difficulty with my answering machine. Often people give me a callback number at such a pace I have to listen again and again just to be able to write it down. So, I have a policy. If I cannot get it on the third attempt they don’t get a call back. Sorry. Slow brain here.
What I have discovered through the years is God is a patient communicator. He consistently feeds at a pace He knows I can grasp. He should understand my intellectual pace because He made me. Even then I have discovered I do have to say to Him, “Say again, please.” It isn’t because He was speaking so fast. It is because what He is saying is so phenomenal. He has said things like just “confess your sins and I will cleanse you.” Wow. Say again, please. Or how about “believe in me and you will cross over from death to life.” Awesome! Say again, please. And I love it when He says, “While we were yet enemies He died for us.”
I have gotten to the place where I think I understand but I still say, “Say again, please” just because I love hearing it.
Written by Roger Bothwell on April 6, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org