A friend of mine sent me a link to a superb article written by Paul David Tripp called Speaking Redemptively. I recommend downloading it and reading it in full, but I thought I’d share some highlights to whet your whistle a bit. (Anyone NOT struggle in this area?)
Speaking redemptively is about being prepared to say the right thing at the right moment and exercising self-control. Speaking redemptively is refusing to let our talk be driven by passion and personal desire but communicating instead with God’s purposes in view. It is exercising the faith needed to be part of what God is doing at that moment.
It boils down to faith. Faith is when we are “sure of what we don’t see”. In the heat of the moment I don’t see what God is doing, nor do I BELIEVE that He is working. I’m not really thinking of Him at all. I want SOMETHING, and I can’t have it. Self-control goes out the window and in rushes passion and personal desire.
Either I am living as a servant of the Lord and accepting His call to serve those around me or I am living to gratify the cravings of the sinful nature and expecting others to satisfy those cravings as well.
It’s easy to become obsessed with “how are others treating ME?” And when they fail us (which, of course, they do), our “rights” have been violated and this stirs up the passion again. I want something, and I can’t have it. (Insert a down-turned lip and a foot stomp here.)
[Marriage]…exists not primarily for our pleasure but as a means of His continuing work of sanctification, that we might be for the praise of His glory. It is no accident that our most significant human relationship (marriage) takes place in the middle of life’s most significant process (sanctification). God designed it that way for His glory and the good of His children.
Isn’t that beautiful? Here’s where the faith needs to kick in again. What we “see” as a really rotten deal…God “sees” as the PERFECT method to sand away all those rough edges in our hearts. He actually designed it that way! This brief life is not about us and our personal happiness. It isn’t about all our dreams coming true. That’s Disney fluff. REAL life is much bigger than that and involves eternity. It’s like comparing a plastic bead to a diamond pendant.
“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” (Galatians 6:1-2) Speaking redemptively means letting this restorative agenda direct our relationships. We are all tempted to think that our relationships belong to us. We tend to view other people as our possessions. Parents fall into this with their children; then, in the teen age years, when the child fails, the parents are unable to see beyond their own anger and hurt to be agents of restoration for their own offspring! Paul is calling us to something radically different here. This new agenda has its roots in the fundamental recognition that our relationships do not belong to us, but to God.
Again, it comes down to a self-focused perspective vs. a God-focused perspective. Gentleness is a possibility when we have given our most important relationships over to God, trusting Him to do the restorative work. This is where prayer comes into play too. These two tools, prayer and gentleness, have such powerful potential if we could only take hold of them and wield them with a strong faith in a mighty God.
We are also free to be gentle because we have given up any hope that human pressure, power, or logic can change the heart. It is never the loudness of our voice, the power of our words, the drama of the moment, the creativity of our illustrations, the strength of our vocabulary, the specter of our threats, or the grandeur of our gestures that causes a turning within people. Gentleness flows from knowing where our power lies. God can use whispered words to produce thunderous conviction in a heart. Yes we want to think and speak well, but only because we want to be useful instruments in the hands of the One who does bring change, not because we trust our skills to produce it.
Gentle talk does not come from a person who is angry and looking to settle the score. It comes from the person who is speaking not because of what He wants FROM you, but what He wants FOR you. I am able to speak to you, not because your sin has affected me, but because it has ensnared you. I long to see you free from its snare. I am not on a mission of selfish confrontation but loving rescue.
I am so convicted by this section. And I’ve seen this first hand. When I choose to take the time to exercise self-control and speak kindly and gently to a child, it makes all the difference in the world in their ability to hear from God and become convicted. When I just “lose it”…the exact opposite happens. The child closes up, grows sullen and puts up a wall of protection. There is no opportunity for God to soften their heart. My sin is in the way.
Download the article in its entirety HERE. And may God grant each one of us grace and power to speak redemptively to those around us. This will bring Him glory…and will increase the joy of our own hearts and the hearts of our loved ones.
