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What We Say in Our Sleep

They say on average that women use twice as many words in a day as a man. Apparently that is not enough for the women in my life. My two-year old was napping as we came to a drive-thru window of a fast food chain. In her sleep she heard her brother ask for a cheeseburger and she mumbled that she wanted one as well. On several occasions, my seven-year old, who probably uses three times as many words in a day as I do, will come out sleepwalking and mumbling. My wife has also been known to sleep-talk, but due to the fact that I value life (my own!) I will withhold details.

All this non-stop talking has me thinking.

First of all, it seems that Christ followers tend to have answers that we give in our sleep. It would be difficult to convince non-believers that we aren't all handed a manual, upon entrance to our club, of how to answer tough questions. The single fact that our answers are similar would not be a bad thing, except that some of our sleepy answers don't actually answer the questions being asked.

This leads me to this second thought. Perhaps we answer questions too quickly. Yes, maybe our answers are technically correct. Yes, maybe the hearers sometimes have to 'man up' and accept hard truth. and perhaps some of the questions are not really valid. But how much time do we give for questions when they are asked in earnest? How many of our answers are not typical knee-jerk reactions? How afraid are we of saying we don't know?

I have done no research, but I wonder if Christians could be accused of using twice as many words as we should.
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