Freedom From Words That Kill, prt. 2
Freedom From...
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
September 20, 2009
Last week we talked about words that kill. I divided words that kill up into two categories -- angry words, and empty words. Do you remember what I told you these two categories of words have in common? They both kill! Are you guys listening?! They both come from a place of separation from God. Neither of them can be said when we are close to the source of ultimate love so we always say them from a place of distance. I told you that this week I would go over some ways of rooting angry and empty words out of your life.
I will start with those things that are not going to change no matter what issues we are talking about. First is that meditation is in order. It is needed because it is through meditation that we begin to establish unconscious contact with God. Haven't you found, as I have, that you often forget about God like 5 minutes after you finish your quiet time. We move close to God during prayer and quiet time because we know we need to be close to God. But it's so easy to move back out of that space, and our anger, and angry and empty words come out of the space that is removed from God. Meditation helps us establish an unconscious connection with God, moving him into a deep place in our lives, where his peace and love are coming to pervade us, and hold us close to him even when we might not be consciously thinking about him. Even if you are thinking about God unconsciously, you will not respond to things in anger, and with angry and empty words. What is at the deepest center of you will determine what comes out of you. You all know that, and how often Jesus talked about that. So I continue to tout meditation as the fundamental place we must begin. You'll be getting information very soon about our spiritual formation groups, and meditation will be a key part of that. We simply cannot get serious about spiritual formation until we are serious about "being still and knowing that God is God." To cultivate stillness is to meditate. Now I will move on and give you some other steps you can take to deal with the problem of angry and empty words.
1. First is to realize where the angry and empty words are coming from. It will be much easier to deal with your tendency to speak angry words if you are also dealing with your anger. If you're trying to stop saying angry words, but are not dealing with your anger, then you are simply trying hard to keep the lid on. But as that anger continues to boil under there, it's just a matter of time before the lid blows off. Count on it. If you're trying hard not to gossip, and manipulate people with your words, you will have much more success if you are getting to the root of why gossip and/or manipulation are such attractive things -- in other words, what ego need are they meeting? That's the real question. We do sinful things because they meet ego needs - they gratify our egos in some way, and the more we learn about how that's happening, the more success we will have with overcoming this stuff. Now maybe this sounds like a lot of psychobabble to some people. But if you signed up tomorrow and got under spiritual direction, do you know what you'd spend a lot of time doing? Getting to the root of the demands your ego is making upon you and how those demands are separating you from God.
Now how do you indentify these things? How do you determine where your need to gossip is coming from and what ego need it is meeting? Well, like I said, a. you can get under some spiritual direction. I can give you names of people who do spiritual direction. They are people trained to help us through these kinds of questions. Another thing you could do is b. you could get into some good Christian counseling. I have names and phone numbers of outstanding counselors who could help you. Another thing you could do is c. you could read a book called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, which will help you understand this stuff better and will itself give you further guidance as to what to do next.
d. Some of you might consider coming to see me and let me talk to you for a while. I can do a little counseling and a little spiritual direction to help you hear what the Spirit might be saying to you. e. Something I hope many will do is join a spiritual formation group. We'll be starting one for women and one for men in the month of October, and these groups will be designed to help you confront and deal with obstacles to living the Jesus life. Remember, we only find spiritual health as we open ourselves more and more to what? (Take guesses) TRUTH. Truth comes from asking hard questions and not letting up until we learn the answers. Anything that guides us into tough questions, and then eventually through the questions into honest answers will be of spiritual benefit to us. That is why those who oppose counseling on the grounds that psychology is a godless discipline are misguided. Psychology, when it is used to help us find truth and guide us toward it, is a valuable tool and one we should not neglect to use.
What probably will NOT work is going it alone. You are going to need help. We cannot uncover these deep things in us on our own - we are just too biased, too blind to our own motivations, to be able to do that. That's why spiritual direction has been embraced by the church almost since the very beginning. We live in this very individualistic society that makes the idea of getting a spiritual director sound strange, like "I can do this all on my own." But the plain truth is that you really can't. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. No one can. We're not meant to. If we're going to confront the things in us that are separating us from God, we're going to need help. So we must get to the root of where the angry and empty words are coming from. Why do we speak angry words? Why do we gossip and manipulate people with our words? Where is that coming from in us?
So we meditate to establish a state of connection to God, since this stuff indicates that we have disconnected from him. We do a few things to help us find the truth about where this stuff in us is coming from. 2. Then we can try some specific spiritual disciplines. One that can be very effective when it comes to both angry and empty words is the discipline of silence.
Think about the quietest person you know. Is that person a gossip? Probably not (though there are exceptions). Does that person explode in anger and say harsh things? Probably not (though there are exceptions). See, the more we talk, the more likely it is that we say foolish things.
Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 (MSG)
2 Don't shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don't be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God's in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.
3 Over-work makes for restless sleep. Over-talk shows you up as a fool.
Our modern tendency is to rashness - to hurry into a flurry of words - to express our opinion right on the spot - to rush to judgment - to speak off the top of our heads. I think of shows like Jerry Springer, which was the extreme end of this tendency that many of us have. The truth is that there isn't anyone in this room who wouldn't be better off if they said less and listened more.
James 1:19-20 (NLT)
19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
When we practice the discipline of silence, we intentionally spend time saying less. And when we are saying less, we will find ourselves listening more. We will listen more to others, and we will listen more to God. We will find ourselves getting ready to spout off about something, then catch ourselves and refrain, then we'll hear a little voice saying, "Why did you feel such a need to rush in and say that? Is the world really worse off because they didn't get to hear from you?"
Some of us will find the discipline of silence harder than the discipline of fasting. Some of us would rather not eat for a day than not talk for a few hours. But do you think there's a connection between minds that are constantly filled with distractions and darting around from here to there in meaningless activity, and mouths that are constantly rambling about every little thing?
Matthew 12:34 (NIV)
... out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
Of course, how could it be any other way? Distracted words come from distracted minds and hearts. Fearful words come from fearful minds and hearts. Words that rush out rashly and vainly come out of rash and vain minds and hearts. So with the discipline of silence we intentionally put on the brakes. We intentionally shut off our constantly running mouths and listen to the silence. There we realize that the world goes on just fine without the juicy information we have for them, people don't need our outbursts of angry words to set them straight, and we don't have to constantly be using words to clear paths for ourselves and manipulate people and situations. We can truly trust God. Isn't that worth coming to know?
Now the discipline of silence is often used in conjunction with the discipline of solitude. Getting away from everything and everyone, and just being completely quiet. When we are in solitude, usually it's good also to be in silence. However, there's also a great deal of benefit in going into silence while we're around people, to whatever extent we can. If you work in a Christian environment you can just tell your co-workers that you're practicing silence for the day, wanting to hear less of your own voice and hoping to hear more of God's. If you don't work in a Christian environment, you could just explain you're practicing a spiritual discipline of trying to talk less. Most people will respect you for acting on your faith. When you're at work, you may have to talk - but you could still talk much less.
So meditate. Get some help getting to the bottom of what's behind angry and empty words. Practice the discipline of silence.
4. Next, I would suggest that you take an inventory of people you have hurt and manipulated with your words, and then spend some time writing heartfelt letters of apology. Nothing is better for the soul than confession and repentance. Who are the people out there right now walking around wounded because of your words? Who are the ones feeling like marionettes on your strings?
This exercise will help you come to a fuller understanding of the extent of your problem with words (just how many letters will you have to write?!). It will also have the side-benefit, in many cases, of leading to reconciliation and forgiveness -- always in line with the Spirit of Jesus. If you make a commitment to send a letter of apology to people you have hurt with your words when it comes to your attention you have hurt them, you will be much more intentional about speaking more carefully.
We can never go wrong with this approach. Even if it was 100% the other person's fault, we do not have to control when and if they come to that realization. All we are responsible for is our own attitude, and our own willingness to accept responsibility for our words and the effect they have on others. What if we decided to err on the side of apologizing more often than was needed? I'm just wondering how many are sitting out there right now going, "Hey, where's the letter you owe ME?"
So we can meditate. We can get to the bottom of where our angry and empty words are coming from. We can practice silence. We can adopt a policy of writing letters seeking the forgiveness of people we realize we have hurt or manipulated. 5. I would suggest that we replace harsh words with words of kindness, and manipulative words with no words at all. When we are angry, it is good for the soul to speak gentle words.
Proverbs 15:1 (NIV)
1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Now this doesn't mean we have to be a hypocrite. When we are angry at someone, we don't have to say (in fact we shouldn't say) through gritted teeth, "What? Me angry? I'm not angry." We can feel the emotion of anger. But what if instead of going off on somebody with harsh words we simply said, "I am angry right now. I value you (or even LOVE you!) and want to speak as kindly to you as you deserve." Then we could either ask if we can discuss the issue later in detail when we've had a chance to cool down, or maybe would even say, "So if I blow it here somewhere, please forgive me -I'm going to be careful."
Do you think, "Yeah, fat chance - how unrealistic is that?" Well, given that the vast majority of people just rush right in with their anger, apparently it's not very realistic at all. Unless of course you believe, like I do, that we don't have to simply accept what everyone else is doing as the default behavior in our own lives. Sure most people are just going off - and they are leaving a trail of hurt and frustration everywhere they go. So unless you're under the impression that someone carrying the Spirit of Jesus in them can go around leaving people feeling this way, then we are positively obligated to find a new way of being. I'm suggesting a way that IS attainable, that we could practice and get to over time. That's how we can replace angry words with gentle words.
And as far as words of manipulation, they need to die on the vine. They just need to not be said. The best way to deal with the need to get our own way is to stop trying to get our own way. The best way to stop gossiping is to stop gossiping -- to remain silent. The best way to stop manipulating people is to simply not say the things we say that make people feel manipulated. Once we learn to stop saying manipulative words, we can then deal with replacing words of manipulation with words of love. By the way, words of love are not necessarily always gentle words. If someone has hurt you, you don't have to guilt trip them or lash out at them. You can lovingly say, "I was really hurt by what you said/did. I have tried to love you and be a good friend to you, and I intend to keep trying, but that was hurtful to me." Say it in a way that stays in touch with the hurt and doesn't spill over into anger. About 90% of anger is really just hurt that we are too afraid to express honestly because when we tell someone they have hurt us we show vulnerability to them. So if we realize that, and choose to speak to someone from a place of hurt and not a place of anger, our words will have a very different tone and be more likely to draw the person toward us rather than push them away.
6. Learn by heart a few scriptures about the power of words and the foolishness of those who speak without thinking. Keep them in your mind and repeat them to yourself. Pull them out when you know you need to remain silent. Realize the strength you are showing by being quiet and that that strength will always remain a secret between you and God, since no one will ever reward you for not saying something that you wanted to say but didn't. Secrets shared between people increase the sense of closeness and intimacy between them, and all the things you want to say but choose not to say will remain between you and God and build the sense of closeness between you.
So there are some ideas, today, on what to do with angry and empty words. I gave you six things you can do, and they are all good and worth doing in whatever ways you might work them into your life. 1. Meditate. 2. Get to the bottom of where our angry and empty words are coming from. 3. Practice silence. 4. Write letters seeking the forgiveness of people we realize we have hurt or manipulated. 5. Replace harsh words with words of kindness and manipulative words with no words at all. And 6) learn a few scriptures by heart and pull them out when we need to remain silent.
What I'm trying to do in this series is begin putting tools in your tool belt. I did a two-month series talking about why spiritual formation is important and what it is, and now I'm actually giving you things you can do to move yourself into the place of grace, the place close to God. I want to talk to you next week about lust. Women, this will not be just for men. Because just as men lust physically, women tend to lust emotionally. Just as men want a sexual rush, delivered by a woman who is not real (and perhaps who biologically almost could not be), women often want the rush of being listened to and appreciated and fawned over, to a level that no real man would ever actually do. Just as men fall into fantasies about the woman with the perfect breasts or the perfect rear-end, women fall into lust about the perfectly sensitive, perfectly attentive, perfectly heroic man. They're both fantasies and they're both lust -- which is simply defined as "strong desire." So let's tackle that beast next week.
