Mawasiliano

What is Mawasiliano? What is she alluding to? You probably opened this post just to find out what this word ‘ Mawasiliano means.. I Hope you do..unless of course you know the language where this word belongs.

Mawasiliano is the swahili word to mean effective communication.  Mawasiliano is a two way information sharing process which involves one party sending a message that is easily understood by the receiving party. If you do not know the swahili language, you would not know the meaning without taking time to find out.

You will agree with me that without effective communication, any relationship will suffer so much strife and frustration. Relationship experts put communication as an essential to any successful relationship.  Without communication, the countdown to the break down of the relationship is on.

Is communication an essential in our relationships with God?  Does it even matter that communication with Him is effective?  It matters, yes it does to have communication in the most important relationship we can ever be in. Our relationship with Him needs effective communication to be more meaningful and fruitful.  The core of relationship with God is love and love communicates. God is Love. (1 John 4:8). Love makes every effort to communicate, that is just what He does. LOVE WILL COMMUNICATE!!!

It takes time to establish the right way to communicate , especially at the start of any relationship. Everyone is trying to navigate how best to put their piece in the best way possible to the other.  However, as the relationship matures, so does the communication. Likewise our relationship with God undergoes those awkward stages of communication. As our relationship with Him matures matures, so does the communication.

The first place to really mature our relationship with Him is in the WORD. John 1 :1 gives us a profound revelation that God is the WORD. In the beginning the Word already existed.The Word was with God,and the Word was God.~NLT.   As we spend time in the WORD, we  are actually  spending time with God, and getting to know who He is, what He is about, what he likes, what he dislikes, what pleases Him , what He thinks of us, His plans for us…. In this way, the relationship grows and evolves.

You may just be struggling to  understand the scriptures, or are just bored (yes, i used to be bored initially), but when you move past boredom and determine to know Him, with the help of  the Holy Spirit , He brings clarity, understanding and a closeness to Him we were created to experience. One has to determine to go past the distractions and feelings and just start to spend time in His word.

Most of us are accustomed to prayer as a mode of communication with God. It is a legitimate way He has provided for us to speak and spend time with Him. Prayer is so beautiful, bringing us peace especially in our moments of turmoil, but it can also be frustrating when it becomes a place where we go and speak to the air and get no feedback.   God had to teach me that Prayer being a mode of communication, was ineffective if it was one sided. Imagine a conversation with a friend, where only one of you speaks, and the other doesn’t say anything, and it ends!! weird huh?? Right, it is.. communication is effective when all involved are able to communicate and be understood. Therefore, prayer cannot be about us just speaking endlessly to God and not taking time to listen to what He has to say. Listening to God is not  something that comes naturally  for us and therefore  we have to make effort to  learn to listen to Him.

Listening to God is only possible when we learn to quieten our hearts.  We need to be still in our hearts midst all the noise around us.  The prophet Elijah’s experience of God’s voice is a good example we can learn from regarding the stillness we need to have in our hearts to hear Him speak:  1 Kings 19:  11-13 

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.  And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ~ NLT.

His voice was a gentle whisper, which is easy to miss , especially in the midst of the noise around us constantly; television, series, phone calls, whats app, the internet, friends, family, books, our hobbies.. just about anything and everything around us is a tool the enemy will use to distract us from spending quiet time in His presence to listen to Him. I don’t list these things to say they are bad, but to alert us to be careful to discern when they are being used as a distraction from being quiet before God to carefully hear what he has to say to us.

A personal experience when I have missed out on listening to God  happens when I decide to spend time in prayer and all over a sudden the whats app ping messages just start rolling in and the temptation to check them and reply so strong. If I give in, I find myself forgetting that I  was meant to spend time with God. Time runs out and all   it is time for something else. An opportunity lost to  whatsapp messages that were not that urgent.. !  It would be laughable if it was not sad. The enemy is really a thief, and He steals even our most important times with God.  Those whats app messages can’t be as important as the message the Lord wants to give me in that moment.

Take time to realize the things that steal those precious moments you could have spent with God in His word or in prayer. Repent and ask Him to help you overcome those distractions and temptations.

Communication with God is best enjoyed from a place of relationship with Him. It is a beautiful thing when one has a personal intimate relationship with the Father. Nothing like it; its really incomparable to any other relationship i have experienced and even enjoyed!

Prayer:

 Forgive us Lord for all the times we have knowingly or unknowingly substituted precious time we could have spent with you for other pleasures. Draw us into intimate and closer relationships with you.  I pray that you continue to teach us to quieten our hearts, to be still and listen to your voice as you speak to us. I pray that  with Your help , we will quickly discern the things in our lives the enemy uses to distract us from spending quality, intimate time with you.

Praying this over your entire body, Jesus Christ, AMEN.