They are beautiful.
And powerful.
They can sound delicious when you need them to.
Or revolting.
(Which is just as it should be in a world that is both of those things.)
They are comforting.
Heartrending.
Encouraging. Motivating.
Devastating. Thought-provoking.
I like the way they pop off of newspaper like tiny black bullets.
And I like how they swirl and flow from the tip of my pen like lovely, lazy rivers.
I love the words that linger on my tongue or hover on my lips or roll up from the back of my throat.
I even love the sound of words I can't understand from places I have never been.
An early memory:
I was trailing behind my mother at the Pickford Dry Goods store while she shopped when two women walked into the store speaking a strange language. In their rapid, clipped tones I caught an unfamiliar lilt and a cadence that made my heart lift and flutter. Soon I had drifted around the end of the rack, away from my mother and over to where they were standing. I remember staring at them in fascination and listening to the lovely sound of their voices--until one of them glanced down at me and I woke out of my stupor, panicked and ran to find my mother. My first remembered romance with words, and they weren't even ones I could understand.
My own words, when pulled from my head and put onto paper, have taken my feelings from nebulous incoherence to the clear expression of a full heart.
Sometimes when words come together in a perfect marriage of sound and meaning, rhythm and cadence, the hearing takes my breath away.
Once upon a time words made me fall in love. And they have kept me there.
Other people's words have brought me face to face with truth and made me think.
Words can stir our hearts like nothing else on earth.
And in this time and place, we are awash in them.
I took a summer off of writing because I felt like words were coming at me from all directions, every second of the day. Good ones, bad ones, wrong ones, right ones--I was drowning in them and I couldn't stomach the thought of adding to the noise.
So I stopped.
Words are so commonplace in our culture, so ubiquitous and inescapable that they have become just another interruption in a sea of distraction.
They are like dust, covering every surface like meaningless shreds of bigger things that once were and are no more.
The slightest movement in our cultural landscape, the least important breath of news, brings them out in choking swirls--gray clouds that hover and dance and look impressive for the merest of moments until they dissipate into an ashy film of meaningless information inside our heads.
They puff out of our phones and in through our earbuds, billow out of computers and blow across our television screens.
In our eagerness to hear and be heard we have created a sludge of sound, and in the process I am afraid that many people have traded the rare and elusive richness of meaning for the effortless avalanche of the mundane.
Even if a person is committed to finding an occasional diamond in that avalanche, the task is monumental and exhausting. With every bucket sifted, a million more drifts glitter with latent possibilities, to the point that the searcher is hindered from savoring the jewels he manages to glean by the prospect of greater riches buried to his left or right--for as far as the eye can see.
Is it any wonder so many stop sifting and just let the stream of information, misinformation, and disinformation bury them?
This wouldn't be such a big deal if words were benign.
But they are not. Shoddy arguments and faulty logic gain a foothold in our minds if they are repeated often enough.
Subtle deceptions trickle into our hearts grain by grain and quietly turn our feet toward destruction.
A clever phrase can sound like angels...and carry the sting of death.
And I can't help but see our enemy behind it.
Who else would have the foresight to transform the blessings of worldwide connectedness and communication into a torrent of noise?
Who but he would work so hard to take the world's most inconceivably beautiful, valuable, and accessible vehicle of truth and corrupt it beyond recognition?
Lest you think I am exaggerating the power of the word, I want to remind you what God used as the agent of creation.
Or better yet, I'll let Him remind you.
Psalm 33:6
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
Psalm 33:9
For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
Genesis 1:3
And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light."
Not only did He bring forth the universe by His word, but He introduced Himself to us by means of it.
Think about it. God is the epitome of creativity, with a universe of expressive means at his disposal. So when it came time to break into our shadowy finitude with His eternal brilliance, how did he reveal himself?
As the Word incarnate.
John 1:1-5 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
John 1:14 " The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The bridge between a transcendent God and a material universe was the most exquisite of Words--the Word made flesh.
In light of this, it makes perfect sense to me that his (and our) enemy would be desperately trying to obfuscate His message to us.
Knowing how highly God esteems them, how ought we to handle words? This is what I have been asking myself all summer. At the risk of sounding judgmental, I can say I think we ought to handle them much more carefully than we do.
Knowing their power to sway the human heart, how many of the words in my music, movies, and news should go in opposition to my stated beliefs?
How will my ear be attuned to His voice if I allow myself to be inundated by a thousand competing views?
God himself says in John 10:3-9 that his sheep "listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”
Does this happen because sheep are exceptionally smart and discerning?
Or perhaps because they are known for their keen insight and good judgment?
If you know anything about sheep, you know that ain't so.
Sheep are consummate followers, habitual wanderers, and utterly defenseless meat bags. If sheep happen to follow their shepherd, undoubtedly it is because they have spent more time at his feet and in his company than anywhere else. His voice is the most familiar thing to them. It has become an instinctive part of their being and because of that, they know to stay by him when the enemy approaches.
The book of Proverbs is packed with warnings against listening to the seductive drivel of wolves and fools (Proverbs 23:9, 14:27, 26:4).
I don't want to follow one.
Or become one.
Proverbs also points out my responsibility to "Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding." Proverbs 2:2
You and I are urged to "call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding" (Proverbs 2:3) and to "pay attention and turn your ear to the sayings of the wise" and then "apply your heart to what I teach." (Proverbs 22:17)
Hmm. That sounds like it might require some effort on our part. Some active familiarizing of our hearts with truth, truth, and more truth.
Some working of the mind.
Some shutting of the mouth.
And perhaps some deliberate avoidance of counterfeit messages? Some working of the mind.
Some shutting of the mouth.
Nowhere in Scripture are we told it is OK to be passive receptacles for every lazy, half-baked idea to slouch off a computer screen or scroll across a smart phone (a misnomer if there ever was one).
Never did God say, "Go ahead and steep yourselves in worthless drivel, and feel free to watch prettified perversion as long as the acting is good and you are still feeling 'spiritually uplifted' from your last small group meeting, and of course you are allowed to sing debauchery and lies at the top of your lungs if the music is catchy."
How we handle words is one of the ways we prove what we believe about God.
If, deep down, we think He is just a supernatural stick in the mud, or that heaven is stuck in a cultural and artistic backwater, or maybe that God just isn't as sophisticated in His tastes as we are, or that perhaps He simply weak in His faith-- then we'll pat Him on the head and belly up for whatever malodorous entree the culture happens to be dishing up that day.
But if you believe His words, you will think twice about yours--both the ones you are dishing out and the ones you are consuming.
Because deep down you REALLY know that the One who loved you enough to die for you offers you linguistic parameters for your benefit.
Because He knows better than anyone that words are powerful.
And that we are weaker than we think.
And that if we insist on bathing in cowplops of foolishness, we WILL become known for our stench. (Proverbs 14:7 "Leave the presence of a fool, Or you will not discern words of knowledge.")
And that when we get to that point we'll forget what sweetness even is. ("turning from evil is disgusting to fools." Proverbs 13:19)
And that, most importantly, if we insist on wallowing in the very things that nailed our Savior to the cross, we will sever the sweetest fellowship we can experience on earth.
Because God and evil cannot occupy the same space.
He won't bust in where He isn't wanted, Friend.
He wants to be with us in relationship, but we need to make Him a space. And we cannot do that if we are busy filling that space with garbage.
His words, not mine.
"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9
"What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
'' 'Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,' says the Lord.
" 'And do not touch what is unclean,' says the Lord.
" 'And I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me,' says the Lord Almighty."
2 Corinthians 6: 14-18
How carefully am I weighing my own words?
Are the things I am saying (or writing) representing my Savior well? ( Colossians 3:8 )
The more ethical contortions we have to go through to justify the language we use and the language we are willing to absorb, the better the chances that we have veered away from righteousness. (Luke 6:45)
The more ethical contortions we have to go through to justify the language we use and the language we are willing to absorb, the better the chances that we have veered away from righteousness. (Luke 6:45)
Please don't read this and get defensive. I'm not judging you! I'm too busy judging me.
But I do want YOU to judge you. Or better yet, open up your Bible and let God do it for you.
Ah, me! Here I am using up a lot of words to talk about being careful with words.
Typical:/
Summary Conclusion: Over the summer I came to see that words can easily be misused. But I also came to see that God has built into me the strong desire to write. This doesn't mean I need a wide audience. Nor does it necessarily mean that I should keep everything in a super secret journal under the floorboards. It just means that I need to be discerning about what I take in and choosy about what I churn out...
...remembering that my words, like the rest of my life, ought to be an act of worship.
************
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in
the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the
Father through him.
If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the
very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so
with the strength God provides, so that in all things God
may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory
and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
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