Inspiring Courage With Powerful Words
by on Nov 10th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I hate cheesiness. I love sarcasm. This makes me dangerous.
Cheesiness is stupid because it is exaggerated fakery, and its targets are more like victims than benefactors. Have you ever been forced to play the game, “Let’s have (insert name) sit in the center of the room and everybody say something nice about him/her?” That is cheesiness. Have you ever been in a small group that, as an exercise, pulls out the “encouragement cards” and then everyone rights an encouragement for someone else in the room? Borderline cheesiness. Forced emotion is not my thing.
Sarcasm is my comfort zone. I grew up around friends that would give you the very shirt off of their backs if you truly needed it, but in the meantime, they would test your mettle with biting comments and sarcastic wit. You were loved when you were prodded and you were respected when you could give out sarcasm as well as you could take it. This sarcastic culture got me in a lot of trouble when I moved to college and found out people had these things called, “sensitivities.” See? There goes my sarcasm again.
As a communicator, I am a dangerous person. If I am not truly thinking about the best interests of the hearers, I can do a lot of damage to a person, and I know I’m not alone in having a volatile tongue. At worst, we all default to destructive conversation, whether it is immoral language, vulgar words (which are a waste of language), gay jokes, or banter that can sometimes be relentless. At best, we default to neutral language that is neither harmful nor helpful (a.k.a. small talk).
From what I read in Scripture, our instructions are to be purposeful with our language and purposely constructive in our speech. Just consider the following passages regarding the power and purpose of our speech:
Ephesians 4:29
Proverbs 12:18
Proverbs 12:25
Proverbs 15:23
Proverbs 18:21
Proverbs 25:11-12
These verses convict me because I am not a person to give compliments very often, or even rarely. I need a compliment or encouragement like a camel needs water; a little bit will do for a very long time. However, in my selfishness, I often think that the people around me are built in the same way, so I offer very few words that are meant to build up the hearer. My wife can vouch for this area that needs some serious development.
Perhaps you do not struggle with being the kind of person who strategically looks for ways to bring words of courage and conviction to your brothers in Christ. If you excel at this, keep doing it. If you are negligent, like me, then let’s pray for opportunities and courage to speak constructive words to those around us. I am sure that we could all call to mind something that was said by a respected friend/relative/authority that fueled our determination to take risks for God or be active in our faithfulness to Him. We would benefit by offering more of these moments to others.
Of course, this does not mean that we need to sit someone down in the middle of a room and all share nice things about them. Like I said, that’s just awkward and cheesy. Yet, if we are honest men and we offer honest words of grace to those around us, they will receive these words honestly.
As an aside (and a pitifully poor literary conclusion), I can tell you as a married man that the way we speak to our wives will shape the way that they communicate in general over time. If we are gentle, understanding, encouraging, and truthful, our wives will have the security and pleasure of speaking to us in a similar way. If we speak to them with disdain, frustration, anger, or demean them, we will either receive a lifetime of silence or venomous nagging in return. The same is true for our kids. Just ask someone who had a gracious mother and demanding, hard-to-please father. Guess which parent still has an open door of communication with his/her son? Words matter, so build something God-honoring with them.