What are our words coming to?

This morning, I heard famous baseball player David Ortiz use the "F" bomb at the pre-game of a Boston game this weekend.  Now during the speech he thanked a lot of people who helped with the capture of the bombing suspect.  The crowd cheered at his words and the FCC will not charge him anything for saying it to an audience of children and adults.  Yet I lost respect for this man.

So those people who influence your children and grandchildren believe that words that have always been "trash" words are just fine to say in order to make any point.

My Dad made a great point to me when he heard people use (what he called) curse words.  Funny how we have softened the term "curse" now to "trash" and will soon me totally removed as any term for words like this that are spoken which condemn God, others, or are sexually inappropriate for children who are learning to speak.

My father went on to impress in me that it is sad to see someone use those words because it indicates a limited vocabulary.  It tells others that they can not chose a valuable word to express themselves but have to rely on a slang word instead.  I took that to heart and on one occasion  I was extremely mad at my sister, which was often while growing up and recall walking away from her and going in the living room to get a dictionary.  Now I was young and just wanted a word to get back at her and relieve my frustrations.  I do not recall the word but I thumbed through and landed on a page.  I looked for the biggest word I could find and checked out how it was to be pronounced, not what it meant.  I then ran back to my sister and yelled out the word.  My puzzled sister did not know what to say, so I just yelled, "Look it Up!"

Throughout my career, I always used, as people would say, "Big Words" to describe my anger, hurt or frustration.  Then in one meeting at a location where I worked, my boss was in a conference room with a mixed group of people and he let out with, "blankity blank" words.  I spoke up and said, "_____, please find other adjectives to describe your frustration", to which the General Manger spoke and said, "I agree."  The boss apologized and said he would try to control his tongue.

Some men were with me when building a house and one man was talking to someone when I hit my thumb with the hammer.  I just yelled and said "ow, ow, ow".  The one just said, "why don't you just cuss and get it over with".  To which my friend said, "He wouldn't say, Sh__ if it was in his mouth".   I now know that it is not hard to find words that do not condemn God, others, or are sexually explicit.

So I encourage you to chose your words carefully because others are watching, both children and adults.   Others will do two things when hear a "big" word to describe your feelings.  First confused and then curious.  What makes you different.  I believe it is because I that the verse below to heart.

For me it is James 5: 12  - And since you know that God cares, let your language show it.  Don't add words like "I swear to God" to your own words.  Don't show your frustration by concocting oaths (like for God to Damn someone or something).  Just say yes and no.  Just say what is true and real.  That way your language can not be used against you (or eliminate your impact on others).

Books in Our Life

Matthew 20:28  That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served - and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage."

Some time ago a speaker at a large church in Chicago came to the front of the room and began talking about the impacts that affect how we live our lives today.  Lined up across the front of the stage were three platforms.  On each platform was a closed book..  As he spoke, he opened the first book and called it “our past”.  He tore out a few pages and tucked those pages in the book on the center platform called, “our present”.

So often we grow up by taking some of the worse or best times of our lives and carrying them on to our present lives.  It can shape us to make decisions that affect those around us.  Little things that drive Lynnette crazy come from events in my past that I have carried into the present.  Most of those I really want to forget, but they just creep back.

Soon the speaker takes pages again out of our past and places them into the third book, called “our future”.  He noted that he completely by-passed the present.

As we mature in age we are sometimes reminded of our failures.  Maybe we were not good athletic in sports.  Therefore when we become adults, we try to live our past though our children and push them to be the best at sports where we were not.   

Yet so often we take pages from our past and bury them into our future.  We try to be what we could not be as a child.  As the speaker noted,  “We make up whatever we need to say or do to “prove” we did not fail as a child." Other times our action are to prove they were right and give us an excuse for our lifestyle and actions.

You see for years as a young man, I was told about my failures as a child.  I can still recall my father saying that I was never going to be successful in life.  I can still recall, “You don’t have enough sense to pound sand down a rat hole”.  Or “Your about as smart as a hill of beans.”  Therefore a part of me pushed to change the past, prove him wrong, and make a better future so the past could be forgotten.  I'm still a work in process and have to analyze my reasoning for a lot of what is taking place in my life.

Jesus was one of the great parts of the past that belongs in our present life books, because He is to only one who can give us a great future book.  Even though I did not learn of His grace for me until later in life, I knew that His life and death is one of hope that takes every failure of our past and throws those pages away. It is me and Satan who reminds myself of failures and not God.

We don’t need to keep the pages of our past or present because we have some great pages in our future book.  

Many times it takes a conscious effort to give the Lord our past, but the new pages of your book includes eternal life and a close relationship with the Savior of the world.  With that in mind you can look at great relationships with family and friends that is free of reminding you of your failures.