1-17-09 Fundamentals – “Bad” Words

You and I speak thousands of words a day, but how often do we think about the words that we speak? You and I speak thousands of words daily, but how often do we take our words for granted? Do we stop and considered the affect of our words on the people around us? You and I speak thousands of words daily, but do we ever considered the enormous effect that our words have on our lives and those that we speak to everyday?

Shortly after we began elementary school we stopped jading our enemies saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” because we realized that wasn’t true. Words do hurt. Very early in our lives we found that to be true. Words affect us.

What is it about words that hurt us? What is it about other words that make us feel so good? There is no physical weight, size . . . no density to any word that we speak. You can’t smell them or taste them but you can feel the sting of a word or the peace and goodness that comes from a word rightly spoken. What is it that makes some words hurt, while others feel so good? The writer in Proverbs says this about the power of our words:

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

We find that some words are like the thrust of a sword to the heart. Those rash words have the power to kill us spiritually and emotionally. But other words fall like fresh rain on parched soil. They sooth our soul, giving it peace and joy – goodness that feels so good. Good words fill our hearts with love (Fill Balloon). Bad words empty our hearts of their goodness (Pop it with a sword)

What is it about the power of words? Have you given much thought to your words this week? What kind of words are you speaking to those around you? Are your words like sword thrusts to those around you, or are your words bringing healing?

We’re going to be talking about the power of words over the next couple of weeks, because as I become more and more aware of the power of our words, I am just stunned that our education system never teaches us about communication and the power of our words on the hearts of those around us!

We spend a minimum of 13 years reading, writing and doing arithmetic. We spend years learning about history, computers, and geography, but most of us have never been taught even the barest essentials about the power of our words and how to effectively communicate. This appalls me because, in my opinion, words are more powerful and have greater impact than electricity, medicine, or the atomic bomb. I would suggest that words are the most powerful force in our world today.

The poor use of words creates more conflict, hurt, pain, anxiety, anger, depression, violence, isolation, and loneliness, than any other thing in our world today. The poor use of words destroys more marriages, more friendships, isolates more kids from their parents, and creates more misunderstandings among friends than any other thing in the history of the world.  I would suggest that words do more damage than most wars, but they are readily available to the youngest of children and nothing is being done outside of the Bible to educate people on the power of words. Words, I would suggest have more power to do good and more power to do evil than any other force in our world today.

We understand so very little about the power of our words, yet we speak thousands of them daily without even a conscious thought about their power on our lives and those around us. Words can do so much good, and words can do so much evil.

So here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to spend the next couple of weeks looking at the power of words and how to use them more consciously to do good and to more consciously keep evil and hurt from being spoken to those around us. Because when we use words in a way that propagates evil, we do the work of Satan and we collaborate with him, intentionally or not. We create, quite literally, with our mouths, hell all around us.

But when we use words in a way that propagates goodness, we do the work of God and we join him in his mission. When we collaborate with God and speak words of goodness, we give people, quite literally, a taste of heaven.

As we said, Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18 This morning we are going to primarily look at the first part of this proverb and next week we’ll tackle the second part of it.

The word “Rash” is not a word that I use or hear other people use much these days, so I looked it up and “Rash” means

1.      To do something too hasty or not using caution in acting or speaking

2.      To be characterized by great haste or recklessness

I generally speak without thinking. Speaking, for me, is like breathing. I’ve done it so much that it just happens with little or no conscious thought.

The Bible says that speaking in that way is “Rash” and that if we do that long enough, words are going to come out that are like sword thrusts to those around us. That happens because when I speak without caution, because I’m speaking in a reckless manner. If I do that often enough, I’m going to hurt someone.

Words are the most powerful force in our world today. They have the power to kill others and they have the power to make them well.

Our words can be like a loaded gun. They can kill the God given spirit within someone. Often time the very people that we love.

There is a second proverb, which is much like the first. It says Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:21

Have you ever heard of a parent breaking the spirit of a child? They belittle them in front of others, they make fun of their decisions, they judge them openly with harsh, condemning words, and little by little that child’s spirit is cut and sliced and slashed, and their spirit begins to hemorrhage. The wounds are not induced with a physical sword like this one, but with a spiritual sword – Words – Thrust, thrust, thrust, until the spirit of that child dies.

Many of us here may not be so rash with our words, but instead of killing the spirit of our children, we tend to maim them. We know something about the power of our words, but we forget, and like we said last week, we become reactive in certain situations and we speak without caution, rash, angry, condemning hurtful words – thrusting, injuring, slashing the spirit which God so wonderfully said, “It’s good”.

Every word carries with it the power of life and death.

The same thing can happen with a marriage. Hurtful, angry, condemning words are hurtled around like two jousters jousting. It may start in fund, but it ends in death. The word jousting gets more and more intense wounding, slashing, drawing blood, until one or both begin looking, not to just hurt the other, but to kill, not their lover, but their worst enemy. A hurtful word feels like a sword thrust to the heart, and it’s no wonder why we want to retaliate and hurt those that hurt us in return.

But friends, here’s the difference between being reactive, as we spoke about last week, and proactive. Reactive means that I will say whatever comes to mind. It means that if I feel hurt, then I’m going to hurt the one that hurt me. If my child or spouse didn’t listen to me or respect me, then I’m going to yell and punish them with my words until they do. Being reactive or rash means that there isn’t a plan, just reactive, hurtful, explosiveness.

Being proactive means having a plan to not give an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth – to do evil unto those that have done evil to us – no not that. But instead it means that we are going to do whatever it takes to do good and to speak words that give life, even if someone else has wronged us. It means that I’m going to take the high road. I’m going to choose, every morning, to do whatever it takes to bring about heaven instead of expanding hell.

Words themselves are not bad. I came across this story this week and I think it helps to explain this idea better.

“BUTTHEAD! STUPID! JERK!”

These were the words I heard floating down the stairs one evening last week. My husband, I noticed earlier, had taken our three sons into our bedroom and closed the door. And so it was with more than a little surprise I heard these words (all of them normally off-limits) being shouted. Nervously, and, perhaps, a little gleefully.

I couldn’t help myself. I went upstairs and poked my head in the door. Hubs gave me a wink, and the boys all shouted, “Mom! It’s Man Town in here!”

 

Ah, yes. Man Town. The “place” my sons and husband have invented when something of a masculine nature needs to be addressed without the involvement of a nosy mother or a pesky little sister. It’s sacred territory, I’m told, by its occasional inhabitants.

The shouts of off-limits words subsided, followed, I could tell, by the calm and muffled sound of my husband’s voice. There was laughing, and then scattering, as the boys went off to play.

 

Hubs came downstairs smiling, and I asked him what was up. As it turned out, he had overheard a Son Who Shall Remain Unnamed secretly using an off-limits word. So Hubs took all the boys upstairs for a session of getting the words out of their system. For a few minutes, he gave them full permission to say the words in question, freely. He stripped away some of the forbidden fruitiness. He let them squirm a little, as the words came out of their mouths, perhaps not quite as much fun to say out loud as they thought it would be.

 

Best of all, he reminded them that the thing about bad words isn’t so much the word itself, it’s the motive and heart behind it. They talked about kindness and respect and doing unto others as you’d have done to you. They laughed together. Their dad looked them in the eye, and he treated them like men.

All in all, a pretty productive day in Man Town, I’d say.

http://forums.parenting.com/blogs/parenting-post/posts/bad-words-good-dad

This dad was a very wise man. He realized that words are not bad because they fit into some “Bad category” but rather it’s because of the heart behind the word being spoken. Kid’s just saying those words loudly into the air wasn’t bad, and I believe those kids felt really weird just yelling those off limit words into the air, because this dad took all the power out of those words because the kids couldn’t say them to each other.

For instance, There’s a long story behind this, but I’m going to shorten it considerably and so it may not all make sense, but my hope is that the meaning will come through.

I was at an area meeting of many churches and what they were doing something that was not of God. I got up and began to share with them in a very firm, but loving way that what we were doing as a group of pastors was not of God. You could have heard a pin drop in that place it was that quiet.

Then when I had finished and sat down, my good friend and coach Rob Link looked right at me from the table next to mine and with a smile on his face, said loud enough for everyone in the room to say, Potgiesser (that’s my crazy last name) you’re an idiot! He went on to say in many more words, “We needed to hear that and what you just did took courage.

Now, I tell that story not to point toward what I did as being right or wrong, but that one of my friends called my an idiot in front of all of my peers. Those are fighting words!!! The term idiot has always been understood by me as being a derogatory word that is meant to knock someone down. It’s meant to make them feel small.  I could have just thrown the gloves down and started going after him. Except . . . that I could see that he used that word with love and he used it to reveal that what I just did was a gutsy thing and he knew that took courage.

Words are not bad in and of themselves. Words were created by God ‘Good” The only thing that makes a word bad is the heart from which it is spoken from.

Jesus said, Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

What makes words good or bad is not because they are in a list of words that are “Good” or a list of words that are “Bad”, but out of the heart that they come from.

After sin entered the world, the first thing that entered the world was fear. Adam and Eve hid from each other and they hid from God. They feared. Fear entered their heart.

If we are honest with ourselves, we speak and act more out of fear than we do out of faith. We operate more out of fear than we do out of love. Do we love those that we’re closest to? Yes. But we tend to speak to them more out of fear than out of love. We’re reactive in our relationships and in our words. Those words that rashly come out of our mouths are like sword thrusts to the heart.

v     Your husband likes doing things with his friends once a week, you may think, “Maybe he doesn’t love me.”

v     My wife spends more time with the kids than she does with me, you may think, “Maybe she doesn’t love me.

v     She just told me what to do or where to be, and I felt more like her child than her husband, doesn’t she respect me?

v     If he loves me, he would help me with the house, the dishes, supper, the kid’s.

What’s in your heart?

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks

“Potgiesser, you’re an idiot.” Bad words are not bad in and of them selves. Words become bad when they’re send from a fear filled heart.

To love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, means to have faith and not allow fear to govern our words and our relationships. Fear is an inability to control that which I can’t control.

Evil words, hurtful words, words that feel like a sword thrust to the gut come from a heart that is fearful. When we seek to love God with all that we are and begin to trust him with our lives, both in the good times and in the not so good times, we begin to live more and more out faith rather than fear, and it changes the kind of words that we speak to one another.

Ok, so what do we do with all this? The first thing I’d like us to work on this week is to life our lives out of faith instead of fear. Live our lives proactively not reactively. Live our lives constructively, not destructively.

A second thing that I’d like to suggest toward minimizing the hurt that comes from our words is to do this. When someone says something that hurts you, say, with as little volatility as you can, “Ouch that hurt.” Whenever you feel hurt by someone say “Ouch that hurt”. Because I’m convinced that most of the time we don’t even know that we hurt somebody with our words. I’m convinced that most of the time we don’t even know we just thrust a sword into their heart. So I’d like us to work on just expressing the feeling that are going on inside you, “Ouch, that hurt”. This works for any relationship if you’re willing to be real.

This past week, my daughter and I were ruff housing and all of a sudden she said, “Ouch, ouch, ouch!!!” and I quickly said, “What’s wrong?” She said you caught my earring with your shirt. I didn’t know that I had hurt her. I certainly didn’t do it on purpose. I wouldn’t have known that I hurt her unless she expressed what she was feeling. Of course, I apologized and things were good between us again.

We have to be willing to communicate the hurt that we feel inside of us, because that opens up a dialog between you and the other person. If we don’t say anything there is no chance for reconciliation, there is no chance for clarification.

Often times, the person didn’t mean to say what you heard, but when you say, “Ouch, that hurt” it opens up conversation and they have an opportunity to explain what they really did mean. Other times, by speaking up and sharing the hurt that has happened within you, it will be the catalyst for starting a deeper conversation where you might get at some deeper hurts and fears.

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.