When Words Hurt

We were in the car late one afternoon and my children were doing their normal back and forth sibling thing in the back seat. (I would call it "bickering" but was told by someone in my family that "bickering" is an old-fashioned word). I grew frustrated by their behavior. Then I got sarcastic.

Later, after returning home, I noticed my children were irritable. One was downright angry. I finally got them to talk and learned that my sarcastic comments hurt them both. I apologized and they forgave but the exchange was a glaring reminder that I do not have control over my tongue. And because I don't, I hurt my children.

Small Yet Mighty

James says that though the tongue is small, it is very powerful. "So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell" (James 3:5-6). 

Proverbs has a lot to say about our words as well: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits" (Proverbs 18:21). "Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin." (Proverbs 13:3). "Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body" (Proverbs 16:24).

I know that words are powerful. As a writer, I know words can persuade, mislead, attack, comfort, or resonate. I know that words can build up or tear down. They can open doors or slam them shut. They can connect or rip apart. They can bring hope and healing or destroy altogether.

The Real Problem

What do we do when we realize we have a problem with our words? In the case with my children, I could resolve to be kind. I could have that guilty feeling I felt propel me to curb my sarcastic ways. But like the resolve we all feel at the first of a new year, on its own, resolve isn't enough to transform our words.

That's because the real problem is with our hearts. 

Words are one of the greatest reflections of what is going on in our hearts. Jesus said that "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). James 4 says that our problems and conflicts stem from our disordered desires, our idolatry, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight" (vs. 1-2). 

A struggle with words reveals what we really love most. It reveals what we worship, what we've set our hearts on. Unkind words are not the problem but a byproduct of the real problem: idolatrous hearts. Deep down, we want life to be all about us. We want to be on the throne of our lives and have everyone else serve us. Our words reveal our selfishness, pride, self-righteousness, and envy. They show our desire to rule our own kingdoms. And above all, they reveal that God is not first place in our hearts. 

As Paul Tripp wrote in The Power of Words and the Wonder of God:

"There is no escaping the message of Scripture: word problems are heart problems. There's an organic consistency between what is in my heart and what comes out of my mouth. The struggle of words is a struggle of kingdoms; a war between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God. The kingdom that rules your heart will dictate your words." (Kindle edition, Location 633, 641).

God's Word Shapes Our Words

When our words hurt others, what we need is the same thing we need for all sin in our life: God's amazing grace. We need his grace, through the person and work of Christ on our behalf, to forgive us, cleanse us, and make us new. We need the surgery spoken of in Ezekiel, where we are given new hearts, hearts that desire God above all else. This new heart is what we've been given through faith in Christ. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

One of the main ways God is doing the work of new creation in us is through the ministry of his Word, applied by the Spirit. Not only do we come to faith through the hearing of the Word (Romans 10:17) but we are changed and transformed by the Word as well (Hebrews 4:12, John 17:17). It is God's active and living Word that cuts deep into our heart, reveals our sin, points us to truth, and transforms us from the inside out. In doing so, God's Word shapes our words. Sinclair Ferguson wrote, "The more I awake in the morning and feed myself with the Word under a biblical ministry, the more the Word of Christ will do the sanctifying work in me and on me, and consequently the more Christ will train my tongue as his Word molds and shapes me" (The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, Kindle Location 1008). That's why David wrote, "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you" (Psalm 119:11).  The more we dwell on God's Word, the more it overflows into the words we say. Just like our children often repeat what they hear us say, the more we listen to the Word of God, the more we will sound like him in our speech. And the opposite is true, if we have been distant from the Word, neglecting the Word, we can expect our own words to change to reflect whatever our hearts have turned toward. 

Because word problems are heart problems, we need God's grace to change us through his Word applied to our hearts. We need to be saturated by the Word until it fills every corner and crevice of our heart. Then the words we speak will reflect and sound more and more like that of our Savior, the Word made flesh.  

Note: This post may contain Amazon Affiliate links.

A Lament Above All Other Laments

Many of us have turned to the laments in Scripture when our hearts have been heavy with sorrow or fear. We may have prayed David’s desperate words, asking God for help and rescue. The Psalms give voice to the difficult emotions we feel in this fallen world.

For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. (Psalm 31:10).

Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love! (Psalm 109:26)

Prayers like these encourage us with the truth of who God is and what he has done. As important and relevant as these laments are, there is one lament in Scripture that stands above the rest. It’s the most important of all. It’s Jesus’s prayer in the garden of Gethsemane...To read the rest of this post, visit Desiring God, my writing home today.

For the Always Wandering Heart

My heart is fickle. Wayward. Wandering. 

Sometimes I am blind to it and think I am faithful. But then God holds a mirror up to my heart and I see the truth.

We are in the midst of a big move for us. When I learned that we would move, I was thrilled. It's something I've wanted for a long time. Then my husband sustained an injury requiring surgery and weeks of recovery and I thought, "There's no way we can get ready to move now!" God then graced us with people to help us get our house ready to sell and we got it on the market. I praised God for the provision and then when we had a contract, I worried that it wouldn't go through. Then I worried that we wouldn't find the right house in the town we are moving to...

I think you get the picture.

One day I will sing praises to God about His wonders and grace. I'll testify to everyone around me about what He has done and how He has answered my prayers. The next day, I'll face unexpected challenges and uphill battles. Things don't go my way. It's one obstacle after another. I grumble and complain. As those challenges intensify, I question God and begin to doubt the very grace I praised just the day before.

I am a lot like the Israelite's.

Wayward Wanderers

After God called Moses to deliver the Israelite's from slavery in Egypt, Moses and Aaron met with the elders and leaders of Israel to tell them all that God had told them. "And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshipped" (Exodus 4:31). So far so good, right?

Shortly after Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh the first time, he made the work even harder on God's people. He took away the straw they were using to make bricks, yet demanded that they continue to produce the same quantity. In response, the people went to Moses and Aaron and said, "The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us" (Exodus 5:21).

As we know, after the ten plagues, Pharaoh finally let them go. But Pharaoh and his men pursued them to the Red Sea. The people saw the army coming after them and even though they had seen the amazing and mighty hand of God at work during the plagues, they responded to Moses, "Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: 'Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness" (Exodus 14:12).

This response wasn't just something that happened occasionally. It became a pattern. Every time the Israelite's faced a challenge, trial, or obstacle, they reacted with anger and doubted God. In fact, they were stuck in the wilderness for forty years because of their constant complaining, doubting, and their ungrateful, stiff-necked responses toward Moses and God.

The Only Cure for Wandering Hearts

In Numbers 21, God punished the Israelite's for their faithlessness by sending fiery serpents which bit many and they died. The people cried out to Moses to pray for them, to intercede on their behalf. God didn't wipe out all the serpents, instead he told Moses to create a snake out of bronze and put it up on a pole in the midst of the camp. Whenever someone had been bitten by a serpent, they were to look to the bronze snake and be healed.

In John 3, Jesus referred to this passage in Numbers when Nicodemus sought him out in the dark of night. This is the same chapter of John where we find that beloved verse, John 3:16. Right before that famous passage, Jesus tells Nicodemus, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him" (vs. 14-15).

There is only one cure for wayward, fickle, and wandering hearts: the cross of Jesus Christ. We all have the venom of sin flowing through us. We are all terminal; the prognosis is eternal death. Only through faith in the substitutionary work of Christ on our behalf can we be saved.

Jesus entered the wilderness of this life for us. He experienced all the same heartache, grief, temptations, and pains of this forsaken world as we experience, yet he never sinned. He too encountered a serpent during his own forty day trek in the wilderness but never gave in to temptation. Jesus became sin for us, was cursed for us, and took the punishment we deserved, so that we might look to him and live.

Like the Israelite's, we are faithless. We are wayward and fickle and our hearts are prone to wander. We doubt God's goodness and question his love for us. Yet God is faithful. Because of Christ's work on our behalf, and through faith in what he has done, we are eternally secure in his love. It will never waver. No matter how faithless we are, God will never love us any less. There is nothing we or anyone else can do that will separate us from the love God has for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). Our emotions may ebb and flow. Our doubts may come and go with the winds of circumstance. But God's steadfast love and grace remains secure. 

As the hymn goes:

"O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above."

The Israelite's didn't deserve a cure for their serpent bites and we don't deserve one for our sin either. But in the wonder of God's amazing race he has provided a cure. It's the only cure. We simply have to look to the cross and believe.

Finding Peace in the Chaos

I often tell people that in our family, I am Eeyore and my husband is Tigger.

There is an episode of Winnie the Pooh I watched once when my kids were little where Tigger convinced Eeyore to add a Tigger tail to his own tail so he could be more like Tigger. It didn't work out so well. When I saw it, I said, "That's me! That's my life!"

In all seriousness, my life is often quite chaotic and I feel like I am an Eeyore being dragged around by a Tigger. Life is fast faced. I juggle more plates than seems possible.  And in recent months, it has never been more so.

My husband broke his ankle right after Christmas, which required surgery, and weeks and weeks of not walking. Add to that a house on the market to sell. Homeschool. New ministry projects. Speaking engagements. The kids activities. Helping my husband get around. 

By nature, I don't like chaos. I like things slow and manageable. I like to have time to think. I need preparation before moving on to the next thing. Chaos is overwhelming to me. I want to run from it. I resist it. But God knows what I need and in his good purposes for me, he often puts me right in the middle of chaos. It is in those uncomfortable places where God does his work in us. In those places that we resist is often where we really need to be. This is where we are stretched and molded and shaped into the likeness of Christ.

In my own chaos, I have found Christ to be sufficient. That doesn't mean he takes away the chaos, though sometimes he does. More often than not though, he calls me to do more than seems humanly possible and then provides just what I need to do it. He even somehow magnifies my time. 

It is in the chaos where I see his grace at work. I see his glory on display and am humbled. But above all, he gives me peace that is beyond comprehension (Phil 4:7). Gospel peace. Peace from knowing that he rules and reigns over all things. Peace from knowing that no detail of my life is left to chance. Peace that comes from resting in the truth of who Christ is and what he has done for me. And peace because I know his love for me is complete and unwavering. 

It is also in the chaos of life where I see more clearly that life isn't about me or my comfort or my strength. It's not about how organized I am. It's not about how well I excel at spiritual disciplines or how much I believe in God's promises. It's really about God's good purposes, God's time, and God's plan. It's about him using all things for my ultimate spiritual good. It's about him stripping me of my reliance on self, my idols of comfort and control, and my well constructed plans for my life. It's about humbling me and exalting the work of Christ in my life.

Chaos is frightening for many of us. It's overwhelming. It magnifies our helplessness. So we run from it or try to manage it. But the truth is, some of us really need chaos in our life because it shows us our need for Christ. It forces us to turn to him in humble reliance upon his grace. And in the shadow of our Savior's wings, there's no safer, more peaceful place to be.

"Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him" (Psalm 62:1 NIV).

Praying God's Story

Scripture has instructed and formed my prayer life in a myriad of ways. I’ve learned from the Lord’s Prayer the glorious truth of what it means to pray “My Father” and “Thy Will be Done.” Paul’s prayers have taught me to look beyond immediate physical needs and desires and to the deeper spiritual needs of the heart. The psalmist’s raw honesty has taught me to come to the throne of grace just as I am.

A perhaps lesser known prayer I’ve learned from Scripture, yet just as important is praying through God’s story, the story of redemption.

A Prayer of Despair

In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet cried out to God because of the egregious sins of God’s people. Idolatry was rampant and the prophet could not understand why God had not done anything about it. Then he learned that God would indeed intervene and in the most unexpected way: through the Babylonians. As Habakkuk worked through his confusion and heard more of God's plan, he responded in prayer...

To read the rest of this post, visit The Christward Collective, one of my writing homes.

The Gift of Sanctification

Before any birthday party or the annual mayhem of Christmas morning, I always prepare my children for what to say when they open a present. I tell them that no matter what they open — whether it is something they like or not — they are to smile and say, “Thank you,” to the giver.

No matter how old we are, it’s always fun to receive a gift. However, as adults we know that though something is wrapped pretty on the outside, it might fail to deliver on the inside. While other gifts, like the ones our children might wrap for us, look wrinkled, bent, and worn, yet contain the sweetest and most precious handmade creations.

God gives many gifts to us as his adopted children. Our salvation is a gift of God’s grace that we cherish and celebrate every day. It’s never bitter. But salvation’s not the only gift God gives us. He also graces us in our sanctification. It’s a gift that is often not wrapped up with a pretty bow. Sometimes this gift is one that we treat like an unwanted Christmas sweater or a well-meaning fruitcake. We might not even recognize it is a gift at all.

Until we look closer...to read the rest of this post, visit Desiring God, my writing home today.