It doesn’t seem like we would need to be taught to talk as it is something we pick up early on. As babies grow, before you know it, they are talking; just one word at a time at first, like “mama” and “dada”, but talking just the same. They are saying the things that relate to their life at that time, and that’s about all they know at first. Then, they branch out to two-word sentences like “I’m hungry” and “but, why?” (even though that last one will get repeated many, many, many times, we will count each one as an individual sentence!).
It may take a while for a child to grow beyond this point. Even when speaking with an older child you could find yourself once again hearing one-word sentences. For instance, an exchange could go something like this: “How are you doing?”, “Fine.”, “How was your day?”, “Fine.”, “Any problems?” “No.”, “Are you ready to eat?”, “Yes.”
Eventually, they develop their talking skills into three and four-word sentences, “I want that” and “I don’t want to” but in the midst of all of these, you will hear some words you will never forget coming from the mouth of someone you love: “I love you” or “thank you”. What a precious gift the Lord has given us in being able to speak. Our words can just reflect what we want or what concerns us personally, or our words can extend out to bless those around us or, even more importantly, bless and bring glory to God.
As a Christian, we have to learn to talk all over again; it’s not that we do not know how to talk as far as saying words and turning a few words into a coherent sentence. It’s more about developing a vocabulary that goes beyond words that reflect our feelings or our circumstances. It’s learning to talk about Someone other than yourself and your feelings and your situation. It’s learning to talk about God and His goodness!
If you spend all of your time talking about your problems, they just seem to get bigger and bigger until you become consumed with them. If instead, you spend that time talking about the Lord and blessing His name and praising Him for who He is and for what He has done and promised to do, then those problems seem to get smaller and God seems to get bigger in your life. The reality is, God already was bigger than any problem you face or ever could have to deal with in your life. The difference is, you learned how to talk!