How often do we say things that make no sense? I'm guilty! Recently I've been trying to catch myself before saying "Hi, how are you doing" or anything similar when I have no intention of proper follow up. I'm learning how to just say hi, hello, happy monday (or whatever day of the week), hey, it's nice to see you or something that doesn't have a question mark at the end of it if I'm in a hurry.
How often do we receive the "how are you doing" phrase as the person speaking obviously has no interest in hearing our story? Not only do I get it from others but I say that generic phrase myself. Sometimes we literally want to dig deeper and find out how a person really is but we realistically can't invest that kind of time into everyone we run into. Some people have rather lengthy explanations if we're really ready to listen and ours might be quite lengthy as well.
If you reduce the timeline to "how are you doing today"... that could be a shorter conversation! It's not that I don't want to talk to people. I have an evangelistic mindset so I'm all about pouring into people but I don't want to lead people on and have my words seem empty.
It's like when we say "I'm starving". Not many of us are actually starving. I've seen what starving people look like in other countries and we're usually fat and happy in comparison... but we still say it.
I challenge us today to use our words wisely and intentionally speak life into people! Try to stray from the negativity that so often surrounds us and find positive responses so we can be encouragers!!! Rock on!