One Surprising Way to Clean Up Your Speech

Middle school parenting is its own tea cup. It takes eye contact and delicate advice. Slow sips to taste nuanced layers of flavor.

Sometimes the tea is bitter, so you try again, time the steep. Try another angle. Practice listening, deciphering, empathizing.

You’ve got to sit awhile to catch what’s behind a pause, a sigh, a shrug. Like tea, it can’t be rushed.

There’s what’s spoken, and what’s not. What’s repeated. What’s wounded. Often it’s all tangled together and magnified by tween insecurity and emotions.

If you’ve got a verbal processor, you pull meaning from the words rather than draw words from the child. You hear the detailed replay–and with it, language circulating at school that pokes and dishonors. As a mom, it hurts. You know now how hard it is to not say what your peers have normalized. Also, that what we say seeps into our thoughts and grows roots.

How to Clean Up Our Speech

I’m heading into home stretch for Mary Demuth’s 90-day Bible reading challenge, reading portions of Galations, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians out loud to help me remember these rich texts. As I’ve found the whole way through the challenge, reading a translation new to me helps me notice verses that I’d otherwise gloss over.

Ephesians 4:29 is one of those verses so familiar I tend to miss it. The way it’s worded in The Voice made me pause. Underline. Read again.

Don’t let even one rotten word seep out of your mouths. Instead, offer only fresh words that build others up when they need it most.

Initially the emphasis appears to be what NOT to do. Don’t repeat it, think it, say it. But we know the harder we try to stop thinking about something, the more it’s on our minds.

Paul gets this struggle. He wrote in Romans 7:19 that “I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it; instead, I end up living out the evil that I decided not to do” (The Voice).

So what’s the answer to cleaning up our speech?

I find it tucked into Galatians. Not self control, but Holy Spirit.

The Truth About Self Control

Try to push darkness out of a room and you’ll run yourself ragged. It’s laughable because we know it doesn’t work. And yet, we apply it to self control. The words we don’t say. The dessert we don’t touch. The apps we don’t scroll.

Paul proposes we instead turn on the light. Lean on the power of the Holy Spirit instead of relying on ourselves:

Here’s my instruction: walk in the Spirit, and let the Spirit bring order to your life.
Gal 5:16

It’s not about what we’re avoiding, but what we’re embracing. The only one who can help us look, think, talk more like Jesus is Him.

It’s not about what we’re avoiding, but what we’re embracing (Twyla Franz quote).

Jennifer Dukes Lee says it this way: “Self-control is actually less about struggling to gain control over your life and more about handing that control over to God.” It’s surrender. Needing Him. Giving Him unreserved access.

What happens when our lives are Spirit-directed? We begin to grow fruit. Not right away, but if we’re patient, seeds will sprout, root, grow. Over time, it’ll look like this:

The Holy Spirit produces a different kind of fruit: unconditional love, joy, peace, patience, kindheartedness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Gal. 5:22, The Voice

We had this discussion in my living room the other week as we wrapped up Jennifer’s study for It’s All Under Control. How the fruit of the Spirit is the result of time spent with Jesus. Inviting His gaze into the deep recesses of our hearts. We’re not patient, gentle, kind because we’re trying to be. Faithful and self-controlled because we’re strict with ourselves. Rather, we cultivate rhythms that keep us proximate to Him and fruit naturally grows.

God’s Empowering Spirit

In her book, She Believed HE Could, So She Did, Becky Beresford enters the dialogue. She writes:

We can live empowered by our self or the Spirit, but we can’t do both. The decision lies with us. We choose whether we will allow God access to every part of our being, even the areas we try to hide out of shame, pride, or sin. Jesus wants all of us. Our desire to hold back creates a tension every person will encounter when trying to walk in step with the Spirit. Human nature veers towards pioneering our own path versus allowing the Lord to determine our course.

Let’s tie this back into Ephesians 4:29:

Don’t let even one rotten word seep out of your mouths. Instead, offer only fresh words that build others when they need it most.

We honor God and build each other up with our speech, not in our strength and self-resolve, but by His empowering Spirit at work in our lives. Our job is not to tight-fist our lives but fall in sync with Him.

Our job is not to tight-fist our lives but fall in sync with Him (Twyla Franz quote).

Further on in Galatians, Paul draws a fascinating connection:

Now since we have chosen to walk with the Spirit, let’s keep each step in perfect sync with God’s Spirit. This will happen when we set aside our self-interests and work together to create true community . . .
Gal 5:25-26

We give preference to the Holy Spirit AND we lean into community. We’re filled and we pour out, gifting what we’re given–in community. We receive the patient, tender kindness of God towards us, then we practice giving it away–in community. We surrender to, trust, and rest in God who’s truly in control, and we walk it out amongst others.

For fruit to grow, there’s got to be an overflow. Our role is both recipient and grace-giver. The work God does in us must have an outlet, and that’s found when we give people around us access to our lives, open up about what God’s currently working on inside, serve and encourage each other, offer camaraderie and accountability.

That’s the advice I give my daughter. You can’t unhear words, but don’t dwell on them. Instead, direct your attention to getting close to Jesus. On your own, you cannot adopt His nature. Spend time with Him and you’ll honor and edify with your speech.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, thank you for the gift of Your Holy Spirit. We don’t have to work to look like you. Instead, You draw us near. Let us hear Your heartbeat. Whisper truth over us. May we listen and follow. Learn and replicate.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

Missional Neighboring 101

This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Download your FREE sneak peek today! Also, get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.