When Your Habits and Speech Have Morphed

^{Romans 12:2} Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.^NLT

^{Romans 12:2} Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.^{The Message}

Other than perhaps a much more liberal use of the word ‘crap’ in the last few years, I am somewhat guarded in my speech, at least when there are ladies, small children, or anyone else present.

As a writer, I’m also very conscious of changes taking place in language. So back a decade ago, I couldn’t help but notice the way the ABC TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition with Ty Pennington advanced the broadcast use of the expression, “Oh, My God!” The show’s final segment — called “the reveal” — would contain at least a dozen utterances of this phrase which, unless the participants were truly calling on God to give thanks for the new housing they were about to receive, amounted to a needless invocation of God’s name that I believe the third commandment is referring to.

The proliferation in print and texts of its abbreviation, “OMG,” unless it a reference to the Ohio Macrame Guild, is equally disturbing.

There are some lines I am very assured I will never cross, and speaking the OMG line in either form or using it print is certainly one of those lines. Still, I often find myself falling into an OMG mindset, where I don’t audibly say the words, but think either them, or something reflective of the spirit of them. Unless I am truly crying out to God — and I wonder how many of us today really cry out to Him — I shouldn’t allow that phrase to be part of my unspoken vocabulary.

But what do I mean by the “spirit” of that expression?

I can probably best illustrate that with another three-letter text gem, ‘WTF.’ If you believe this has something to do with a wildlife federation, then I envy you, since such ignorance is truly bliss. It means something else. (Go to the last letter for clues…)

WTF is somewhat of an attitude. It expresses a familiar kind of bewilderment, but is in some respects a statement of a kind of confusion or Twilight Zone moment that didn’t really have a previous equivalent in colloquial speech.

Which is why I was rather amazed to hear it in church recently.

No, it wasn’t uttered out loud — either as an acronym or fully — but the highly respected Christian leader I was talking to was clearly dancing around it. You could feel the tension of the self editing taking place. The words used were different, but the articulation was intended to convey the spirit of WTF. The attitude was 100% present.

For the reference, file away the phrase “Twilight Zone moment” when trying to describe something of this ilk.

Another point — he said, anticipating the comment — is that if we really believe that in all things God is working for our good, should we really ever experience WTF moments? If we are trusting, clinging and relying on God, while unexpected things happen, and while they do bewilder and confuse, should we embrace the WTF kind of attitude? (A friend of ours call these “sand in the gears” moments.) Aren’t these weird and wonderful things the cue for a “count it all joy” attitude? And what about the idea that Christians are expected to “maintain a distinct identity” from the world?

I think it is only a matter a time before OMG and WTF arrive at church. As shows like Extreme Makeover program opens the door, this type of speech becomes more entrenched, and other broadcasters will follow the trends, at which point it’s easy to predict OMG being on the tongues of people at Sunday worship.

Another translator — it might have been the old Living Bible — put the verse I started out with this way…

Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold…

When Words Sound Awkward

This is from the blog of Janelle Keith, where it appeared as When Clumsy Words Come.

There are days when I can’t put words to the hurt.

“Dear God, please help me handle the clumsy words that will come my heart’s way. May I respond in gentle answers. Even when I don’t feel like it.”

I have been bruised by so many words by myself. Because I have been given a sensitive spirit to words, I wonder about those bruiser words we say and receive.

Who hasn’t been on the stinging end of an emotionally charged zinger? From ourselves to ourselves?

Backed by the truth only found in God’s word, I can put the negative self-talk in the corner to rest a bit. Oh yeah, every now and again it peeks out. But I am getting better at this.

It was the day that left me rubbing my eyes filled with tears and wondering, “What did I say that was wrong?” The day that I was blindsided by criticism…again. Man, criticism cuts so deep and lingers, bouncing it’s way in our hearts, and settles hard.

Why is that we have rolled out the red carpet for access to our hearts? All it takes is one harsh word to start an avalanche of an ocean of emotions. Just one…and it hangs out and has an after party too, wrecking and wreaking havoc on our wounded hearts. Just a little poison is all it takes.

Words that are harshly said, just hurt. When people are critical it pierces. And no matter who you are, or what you do or how much chocolate you have at your disposal, one little kiss of harsh tones combined with words said without grace only breeds poison. And it spreads like the plague. It can choke, stifle, and shut down the most pleasant conversations. And it kills us, we who have those creative spirits. It numbs and suffocates.

I really wish we could take a little love pill and make it all go away. When hurtful words hit, no matter the delivery, there is damage. Especially when the clumsy words are not said under the umbrella of grace, of God’s love and mercy. Whether you are the one doing the damage or the one receiving the damage, emotional repair is needed.

Words are powerful. They have the gift of life or death. The tongue is a mighty force to be reckoned with. God’s Word to me are a charge that every word should be wholesome.

Hey…did you know that purity should rule our speech too?  Love should guide our thoughts, grace should spill out of our mouths.

Ephesians 4:29 “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” (NLT)  The NIV version uses “unwholesome”.  The Message says, “Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.”

Say only what helps. Criticism doesn’t help. Pointing out failures doesn’t help. Correction, without love, is unkind.

Are your words pure? Only when you are in a good mood? Or when things go your way? Read those verses again…

Let each word be a gift. Our words should always be a gift. A gift to others and to yourself. Something to treasure, to hold with esteem, wrapping each syllable with love. God’s Love is something to give to others and ourselves, when we consider it a gift that we would a give to someone that we love.

A gift of love, so should our words be.

So about those words that just bust out of our mouths, the ones we blurt out in the car on the way to church, or when we have had a really bad day at the office, when we don’t feel loved or don’t love ourselves? I don’t think you need my help filling in these blanks…do you?

Lysa TerKeurst recently put this as her Facebook status ~ “Don’t let people’s compliments go to your head and don’t let their criticisms go to your heart.” Could it be that really our insecurities or inadequacies are speaking?

Whatever your word motives are, if you are using worthless language to anyone including yourself, then those words are not driven by love. I know those that unwholesomeness doesn’t build the body of Christ, it only destroys and tears. God has shown me that when you internalize the criticism you tend to say about yourself, you soon become the very criticism you are telling you.

In my search for Christ’s identity I have uncovered who I am not. I am ashamed to tell you that I had to do quite a bit of digging, to see God’s lovely inside of His wholesome. I found a few scarred places that are healing now. Nothing can tear my redeemed label up or apart because my wholesomeness is healing from God’s heart of approval.

Knowing Wholesome is what protects my heart from the criticism of others, including my own criticism of my own flaws, failures, and fabrications. My unwholesome rule has to apply to myself, like it does to you. I must not let self-criticism slice through my heart, spurred by negative or unhealthy thoughts. That kind of self-negative talk is contributing to the contamination of the perfecting work that God is doing on my holiness journey.

Don’t take part in the giving of unwholesome language. Your words matter…to God, to you, to others.

So what should our response be to those emotional charged zingers and clumsiness that spills and spews? Our response should be one said of holiness by acknowledging that we are all God’s workmanship in progress. By staying calm, using self-control and not lashing out in anger, it will add peace and not add fuel to the fire. There is no restoration in compounding the hurt with more hurt.

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.” Proverbs 15:1-2

When practiced, the fruit of the Spirit can be such a calming gift love. A gift of words.

A gift.

Let your words be a gift to yourself and to others. How do you handle people who hurt you with words?

Knowing When To Shut Up

If this picture looks familiar, it’s the fifth time we’ve used it here. See below for links to other articles.

Many of us our conscious of the Bible’s emphasis on stillness and waiting. What person reading this hasn’t heard, “Be still and know that I am God?”  But silence is a very different discipline. It can be motivated by various factors and offers various kinds of benefit and blessing.  The problem for some of us is that we like to talk, and if you talk and talk all day, you’re almost certain to come out with a sentence or two you wish you could at best modify, at worst retract completely.

James 1:19 says

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.  (NIV)

Eugene Peterson really focuses this text:

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. (MSG)

The book of Proverbs, needless to say, covers the virtue of holding back from speaking with these words:

Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.  (NASB)

Some of the alternative renderings here are interesting:

• [is esteemed] a man of understanding (KJV)
• he is considered perceptive (NKJV)
• seem intelligent (NLT); is deemed intelligent (ESV)
• thought wise  …  and discerning (NIV)

There is great value in saying things like:

• I’ll need some time to formulate a response
• I’ll have to get back to you on that
• I don’t know
• That’s something I need to think about
• I’m not sure how I would answer that

Or just

• Hmmm

Of course this is a lesson that many statesman, politicians and civic leaders have learned the hard way. The importance of restraining their speech; of keeping their speech tightly under control.

So this is a lesson we can apply in our relationship with family, extended family, neighbors, co-workers, fellow-students; and people we meet in the course of every day life when conducting business, using services, shopping, etc.  But what about in our relationship with God?

Some of you may have already thought of this passage in Job 40:

The Lord said to Job:

² “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
    Let him who accuses God answer him!”

³ Then Job answered the Lord:

⁴ “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?
    I put my hand over my mouth.
⁵ I spoke once, but I have no answer—
    twice, but I will say no more.”

The NLT translates verse five, “I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say.”  Job is at the end of himself in terms of his wrestling with God, and is now repentant and contrite.  Matthew Henry’s Concise commentary says of this passage:

Communion with the Lord effectually convinces and humbles a saint, and makes him glad to part with his most beloved sins. There is need to be thoroughly convinced and humbled, to prepare us for remarkable deliverances.

After God had shown Job, by his manifest ignorance of the works of nature, how unable he was to judge of the methods and designs of Providence, he puts a convincing question to him; Shall he that contends with the Almighty instruct him?

Now Job began to melt into godly sorrow: when his friends reasoned with him, he did not yield; but the voice of the Lord is powerful. When the Spirit of truth comes, he convinces. Job yields himself to the grace of God. He owns his offenses,  and has nothing to say to justify himself. He is now sensible that he has sinned; and therefore he calls himself vile. Repentance changes men’s opinion of themselves. Job is now convinced of his error.

Those who are truly sensible of their own sinfulness and vileness, dare not justify themselves before God. He perceived that he was a poor, mean, foolish, and sinful creature, who ought not to have uttered one word against the Divine conduct. One glimpse of God’s holy nature would appall the stoutest rebel. How, then will the wicked bear the sight of his glory at the day of judgment? But when we see this glory revealed in Jesus Christ, we shall be humbled without being terrified; self-abasement agrees with filial love.

Yes, God searches the hearts and minds of people and knows their thoughts; but even so, we can ‘say’ too much to him.  This is a reminder that being slow to speak applies even with our relationship with our heavenly father.

---

The picture that accompanies today’s text has appeared four times before here. I wonder if that means something?

• Knowing When To Say Nothing (March 12, 2011)
• Don’t Hair Trigger Respond to Your Critics (July 21, 2012)
• Purity of Speech (July 6, 2012)
• Exemplary Speech (March 29, 2012)

When Worldliness Invades

^{Romans 12:2} Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.^NLT

^{Romans 12:2}Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.^{The Message}

Other than perhaps a much more liberal use of the word ‘crap’ in the last 2-3 years, I am somewhat guarded in my speech, at least when there are ladies, small children, or anyone else present.

As a writer, I’m also very conscious of changes taking place in language. So back a few years, I couldn’t help but notice the way the ABC TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition with Ty Pennington advanced the broadcast use of the expression, “Oh, My God!” The show’s final segment — called “the reveal” — would contain at least a dozen utterances of this phrase which, unless the participants were truly calling on God to give thanks for the new housing they were about to receive, amounted to a needless invocation of God’s name that I believe the third commandment is referring to.

The proliferation in print and texts of its abbreviation, “OMG,” unless it a reference to the Ohio Macrame Guild, is equally disturbing.

There are some lines I am very assured I will never cross, and speaking the OMG line in either form or using it print is certainly one of those lines. Still, I often find myself falling into an OMG mindset, where I don’t audibly say the words, but think either them, or something reflective of the spirit of them. Unless I am truly crying out to God — and I wonder how many of us today really cry out to Him — I shouldn’t allow that phrase to be part of my unspoken vocabulary.

But what do I mean by the “spirit” of that expression?

I can probably best illustrate that with another three-letter text gem, ‘WTF.’ If you believe this has something to do with a wildlife federation, then I envy you, since such ignorance is truly bliss. It means something else. (Go to the last letter for clues…)

WTF is somewhat of an attitude. It expresses a familiar kind of bewilderment, but is in some respects a statement of a kind of confusion or Twilight Zone moment that didn’t really have a previous equivalent in colloquial speech.

Which is why I was rather amazed to hear it in church recently.

No, it wasn’t uttered out loud — either as an acronym or fully — but the highly respected Christian leader I was talking to was clearly dancing around it. You could feel the tension of the self editing taking place. The words used were different, but the articulation was intended to convey the spirit of WTF. The attitude was 100% present.

For the reference, file away the phrase “Twilight Zone moment” when trying to describe something of this ilk.

Another point — he said, anticipating the comment — is that if we really believe that in all things God is working for our good, should we really ever experience WTF moments? If we are trusting, clinging and relying on God, while unexpected things happen, and while they do bewilder and confuse, should we embrace the WTF kind of attitude? (A friend of ours call these “sand in the gears” moments.) Aren’t these weird and wonderful things the cue for a “count it all joy” attitude? And what about the idea that Christians are expected to “maintain a distinct identity” from the world?

I think it is only a matter a time before OMG and WTF arrive at church. As programs like Extreme Makeover program becomes more entrenched, and other broadcasters follow the trends, it’s easy to predict OMG being on the tongues of people at Sunday worship.

Another translator — it might have been the old Living Bible — put the verse I started out with this way…

Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold…