Choose Your Words Carefully

Surely someone has said to you,

”Better choose your next words carefully!”

Wisdom speaks almost venomously and suddenly you know your next words can be like pouring oil on a smoldering fire, and the flames will be fanned with your delivery! Or, your words may take the same oil and pour on troubled waters to help smooth the waves.

The words you say are that important!

So. Stop for a moment. Think about where you are, what you need to say, and what you should say. These words are very important!

I sat in a workshop/training class this week for nearly 8 hours per day and will have 24 hours of words spoken to me by the end of the week. This is a time of personal growth of my own choosing, but the speaker has my ear. He is someone I’ve grown to trust and respect. What he says has been carefully chosen, crafted for effect, thoughtfully presented, and gratefully received. Almost like a sponge, am I, you might say.

I guess I’m a “word searcher”. You know, maybe someone who likes to use the appropriate word, and hear the best word for the moment, and determine how to add it to my repotoire. Words. Phrases. Examples. Styles.

But here’s the key. It does no good to “soak it up” if you never “put it to work!”

Words pop up in all the usual places and ways, but some stand out at opportune times causing you to pay attention. For example, my cousin pointed me to a book by tweeting a quote and this got me interested in a new author (to me) and makes me want to read, even though the author has recently passed.

The Foreward was well thought out and presented by someone who had received wisdom from the author. I always read the Foreward because it sets the stage for what is ahead.

Now that the Foreward has been read and thought about, I turn the page (Kindle, you know), and am immediately blown away by the flash of insight from simply reading the title to the first chapter. I have to pause, and pause some more, because the thought behind the words is deeper than I can consider at a glance.

What were the words? The title of the chapter simply said:

If this doesn’t grab your attention then you are not reading anything into anything you read!

Maybe the stage was not set properly for you to expect words to leap off the page, grab you by your mind, and squeeze some insight into your thinking process. Of course, you may need to be guided to some material where this readily happens to just about everyone, but if you are a background thinking person, then words like this will slap you silly!

Key Idea: You may need to position yourself to pay attention to the words you receive! They are popping up everywhere and we lose them in the background clutter of life.

Let me tell you something… I paused and went back to the Foreward, and read it again! The Foreward was written with the insight of a person who found the author speaking reality into situations of stress and despair felt by her and others who were being counseled to deal with the death of a loved one. Maybe with that thought you may want to know something more. The author? Gordon Livingston. The book? Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know  ( Link )

The Foreward came from a recipient of the authors wisdom as a result of the loss of her child. When needing something to assuage the pain, Livingston simply said to her:

All I know is what I feel and what I hope.

All I know is what I feel. What I hope. Not what I know from book and instructional knowledge, nor head knowledge. It’s not about what I think – because we all know our thinking skills are sometimes suspect. But what I do know is that which comes from the feelings that define where one is at, and the hope that one has in something to explain the loss and to point the way forward.

Maybe this is the key for many folks. We disbelieve the head knowledge because there doesn’t seem to be an answer to our dilemma and we dig deeply and find the internal knowledge that most of us call the “heart of hearts”.

In my class, my teacher has said it over and again, for the material we were learning we should “Suspend Disbelief” and get ready to accept that our negative attitude keeps us from accepting that there is a path forward!

Imagine fulfilling the role of a counselor to someone’s grief. What do you say? How do you approach where someone is and give them tools to find daylight? How do you separate yourself from the pain another feels? How do you give them the feelings and hope you have yourself? Or, how do you lead them to a path of self discovery?

Choose your words carefully! They are important. This is not a novel with words from an author who doesn’t know what to say and suddenly makes up something that sounds good, warm and produces fuzzy feelings.

Suddenly you find yourself speaking into someone else’s reality. Your words can help. Your words can cause incredible damage.

Here’s my thought. I’ve used this quite a lot lately, but it seems to be totally appropriate. Only the Gospel of John refers to this incident, but early one morning Jesus is teaching on the Mount of Olives. I’ve been there. I understand the surrounding territory. People cling to his words, hoping against hope for something that will encourage and bless them in their hopeless world. Sickness. Despair. Dealing with life in a home land that has been trampled by the conquering power of another country and culture.

The Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery. I’ve often wondered where the man was…but that’s not the focus of the moment. The religious authorities are hoping to catch Jesus in a moment of “wrong words” so they could take him in an act of blasphemy. It is their job to tear down anything they do not understand, and to cast aspersions on anyone who looks at life differently. Jesus is not their Messiah…he is the enemy!

In other words, the words of Jesus has the power to bring condemnation raining down like brimstone at Sodom and Gomorrah! Even if what he might say will be truth. The authorities were looking for the Right Words for their own purposes to be advanced.

Instead of speaking, Jesus kneels and begins to write in the sand. Understand, we do not have a clue what he is writing, but there are words they are expecting and he is not giving them weapons to use against him. They badger him and finally he speaks.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. (John 8:7)

His words batter the hearers with simplicity. She’s caught. You have the power and the authority to condemn and punish. Do something! Say something!

Ahhaaa… But can you do it as a sinless person?

Jesus returns to writing on the ground and slowly the accusers leave one by one…beginning with the eldest and lastly, I imagine, the hotheaded youngsters.

Finally. No one is there but Jesus. And the sinner. The hurting person. Humiliated, perhaps, but definitely one waiting to hear the words that will heal, or condemn.

What will Jesus say? What would you say? Remember. Choose your words wisely.

The Psalmist describes the Words of the Lord like this:

“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”  Psalms 12:6 (KJV)

His words are Pure! Tried and cleansed by Fire! Solid as the earth! His words have the power of being righteous! Not once, or twice, but seven times. The number of seven represents Spiritual Perfection! Jesus is not in this to get the last word. He’s in this to minister his words and spirit to hurting sinners everywhere!

What would you suspect Jesus would say to the woman?

Neither do I condemn thee…go…sin no more. (John 8:11)

And the words from Godon Livingston come back to me, “If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, the map is wrong!”

How many times do we want to give the last word to the situation? We speak as the embers cool, and often the words we use are more hurtful than anything else that could have been said. Maybe we need to be more like Jesus… write in the sand… wait for the accusers to leave and simply say. Neither do I… Go. Sin no more.

Here’s one last thought. We often think of words we wished we would have said long after we leave a situation. And that grinds at us. We often let our minds deal with the response we could have blasted others with, without trying to hear the words being poured out of a hurtful soul. It’s generally much later, and long after the fact we find the best words.

But Jesus teaches even better. He has the words that will heal, but he has the power to condemn. Jesus. To be like Jesus.

Neither… Go… Sin no more.

We should find value in these words and do our best to repeat the action more often, rather than let our emotions control our words.

Choose your words carefully and speak healing words.