What Language Are You speaking?

Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net &
David Castillo Dominici

I Corinthians 14:19 But in a church meeting I would rather speak five understandable words to help others than ten thousand words in an unknown language.

Don't worry, I am not going to tackle speaking in tongues. You can take that one up with God. My thought here is that when it is in our control, we need to make things simple and understandable. Let's apply the KISS principle, Keep it Simple Stupid.

When my kids need discipline, and it seems like that's pretty often, why do I suddenly develop diarrhea of the mouth? I mean really, I go off ranting and raving until their little eyes are glazed over and nothing is getting in. Basically, I'm training them to tune me out. If I could just keep it simple and understandable, it's much more effective.

Then there's relationships. We women tend to complicate things, especially with our husbands. Sometimes it's just as simple as "it is what it is" and we need to ask God to remove the memory of the hurt or offense from our minds. The Bible tells us what to do when we've been offended. We are to make allowances for each other's faults (Col. 3:13). I know that's not easy, but it's the only way relationships will work.

You have your own examples in particular relationships. For my husband and me, it's not listening to me with his face. God created me to feel loved when I get face time, and my husband is not very good at this. But when I get offended, or hurt by it, I just need to know his heart. His intention is not to hurt my feelings, so what I need to do is give him grace.

I'm not saying that we are never to work things out with those who have offended us, sometimes there's no escaping it. But when a particular issue has us down for too long, we may just need a different focus. And there's nothing better to change our focus than spending time in God's word and offering up praises to the One who holds every tear we cry in His hands. Spend some time with Him today, you'll be glad you did.