Let your conversation be gracious and effective so that you will have the right answer for everyone. ~Colossians 4:6 NLT
Open mouth, insert foot. You have been there haven't you? That time that you were chatting with a friend and just talking away when the next thing you knew out slipped a few words that could have been phrased better, or shouldn't have been said at all. You know those words hurt the person you were talking to, whether they embarrassed them or opened up an old wound. You just didn't realize what you were saying until it was to late.
And therein lies the problem, we didn't realize what we were saying. We were lax in taking every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5) and before we knew it, it was to late. To be tactless is to be marked by a lack of the keen sense of what to do or say to maintain good relations with others or to avoid offense. Lacking tact ruins relationships if left unchecked and unaddressed. After all, who wants to hang out with the gal who is always telling you (or others) the thing you don't want to hear?
Now that isn't to say that being honest is being tactless. But it is possible to be honest without being brutally so. I am often instructing my children that it is possible to say the same thing in many ways. You can tell someone that you disklike their clothes by saying, "eww! That looks awful on you!" which would fall into honest but tactless. Or you can say, "that's a good color for you, but the style doesn't flatter you as much as it could." Both convey the same sentiment, it's not a good outfit, but one builds up and the other tears down.
Today let's try a little harder to avoid offense. You don't need to be a doormat, but you don't have to be brutal either. Let's think before we speak so that we can keep our feet out of our mouths.
And therein lies the problem, we didn't realize what we were saying. We were lax in taking every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5) and before we knew it, it was to late. To be tactless is to be marked by a lack of the keen sense of what to do or say to maintain good relations with others or to avoid offense. Lacking tact ruins relationships if left unchecked and unaddressed. After all, who wants to hang out with the gal who is always telling you (or others) the thing you don't want to hear?
Now that isn't to say that being honest is being tactless. But it is possible to be honest without being brutally so. I am often instructing my children that it is possible to say the same thing in many ways. You can tell someone that you disklike their clothes by saying, "eww! That looks awful on you!" which would fall into honest but tactless. Or you can say, "that's a good color for you, but the style doesn't flatter you as much as it could." Both convey the same sentiment, it's not a good outfit, but one builds up and the other tears down.
Today let's try a little harder to avoid offense. You don't need to be a doormat, but you don't have to be brutal either. Let's think before we speak so that we can keep our feet out of our mouths.
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