Use Your Words
On more than one occasion, I have witnessed parents dealing with children who are on the verge of an emotional meltdown. There are a few ways of dealing with such circumstances, some not considered appropriate in civilized society. One of the increasingly popular techniques is to say to the child, “Use your words.” The goal of the parents is to encourage the little one to verbalize his or herdiscomfort, frustrations, or needs without resorting to weeping, screaming and foot stomping. This, of course, requires a certain level of maturity. Only when children have attained some level of social awareness and self-control can they use their words to express their deep feelings and avoid emotional and physical outbursts.
Beginning at verse 14 of Ephesians 4, Paul indicates that his goal is that spiritually we should “no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
This passage is all about Christian maturity and right smack in the middle of it we see a verse in which he addresses the way we talk: “speaking the truth in love,” to the end that we may grow up in all things into Him who is the head even Christ. Being able to express ourselves appropriately in love is a sign of maturity.
Sometimes, Christians get frustrated with each other and (if they speak to each other at all) they don’t speak the truth in love. Like immature children, they have a little tantrum and refuse to cooperate with the others. They don’t use their words. They just withdraw.
If we look down a little farther in this chapter to verses 25 to 27, we find this: “Putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another. ‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.”
It is not by accident that this admonition to speak truth with our neighbours, family members, people in the community or people in the assembly is adjacent to an admonition about anger. So often when we are angry and frustrated, we bottle it up. We don’t speak the truth. We say we’re “fine.” Sometimes we may even raise our voices as we say it. Clearly we are not “fine,” we just aren’t prepared to talk about it.
Just as parents tell their children to use their words and thus demonstrate their emotional and social maturity, so Paul urges us to use our words, to get it out there, to talk about what is on our hearts. It might be our pain and frustration or it might be dreams and plans. Whatever it is that is gnawing away at our emotional insides, needs to be expressed, so Paul encourages us to speak the truth, but more than that to speak it in love. The ability to speak the truth is evidence of the maturing work of the Holy Spirit in our life.
Ron Hughes
© August 2007
