Wow! Instead of interrupting, pray for the person who's speaking!

THE LOUDEST VOICE WITHIN ME - As our choices settle into character traits, they are “farmed out” to our body, where they occur more or less automatically without our having to think about what we are doing. But because we are trained in a world of wrongness and evil, the body comes to act wrongly before we think and has motions of sin in its members, as Paul said (see Romans 7:23), which may thwart the true intent of our spirit or will by leaping ahead of it. 

Good intentions alone do not ensure proper action. This is marked by Jesus’ words: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). In this state, the body dictates to our soul (our executive center), which dictates to the mind and feelings, then to our spirit, and back to God. Conversely, the “life from above” flows the opposite way: from God to the spirit, to our mind and feelings, to our soul, and then to our body and its social context. 

The former order (in which the body dictates) is characteristic of what Paul described as “the mind set on the flesh,” which is “death.” The latter expresses “the mind set on the Spirit,” which is “life and peace” (Romans 8:6). The “flesh” refers to the natural human powers or capabilities. But for the individual away from God, flesh becomes, in practice, simply the body. 

If we focus on our body as our main concern, we make it impossible to please God, and we ensure the utter futility of our lives. “For those who are according to the flesh [the natural human powers only] set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Romans 8:5-7). 

The will or spirit, tiny power that it is, is very largely at the mercy of the forces playing upon it from the larger self and beyond. Do you ever leave a situation and wonder why you said the things you said? Somehow you got “carried away.” It’s as if the body has a life of its own, and it does. Sin dwells in our members—our tongue, even our hands. Our automatic words and gestures can be death dealing or life giving. 

This becomes real to us when we try to stop doing certain things. For example, those who interrupt others as they speak struggle to stop doing this. Without realizing it, they have trained their body—specifically their mouth—to speak forth what the mind is thinking with little regard for the person they’re talking to. They routinely and with a clear conscience silence the other person’s voice. That’s where spiritual disciplines help. 

For example, the discipline of silence—especially the mini-discipline of letting others have the last word (not one-upping them or defending ourselves)—teaches our body to be at rest, to hear people and appreciate them as they speak. We may also need to add the discipline of prayer, to pray for the person as he or she speaks.

Johnson, Jan; Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice: Experiments in Spiritual Transformation (Redefining Life) (pp. 30-31). The Navigators. Kindle Edition.