What a pleasure it is to hear devotional thoughts from Elisabeth Buono this week! You can stop by the contributors page to learn more about her.

As some of y’all may know, I got married a little over a year and a half ago to my wonderful husband Nick, and as some of y’all may also know from experience, being married is a sweet and lovely gift that exposes the sin in your heart like few other things may ever do. One area in particular I’ve seen this over and over again in my own life is in how I communicate, and I wanted to share a few thoughts today that I hope may be helpful to some of y’all too whether in marriage specifically or in any other relationship as well. 

A little of what I’ll share stemmed from a podcast I listened to recently that contained an interview with author Tilly Dillehay that spoke so well to what I needed to hear, and I’ll put the link in the comments below in case anyone else can find it helpful :). 

Before marriage, and now in marriage, I can see how it easy it is for me to use my words, spoken from a self-centered, unloving heart, to tear down the one person I have specifically been given the job of helping. Perhaps some of you have seen that struggle come up in friendships, on social media, or with others close to you. You get up in the morning desiring to love and help someone, desiring to live in a way pleasing to the Lord, and perhaps begin seeking to live this out in your words and actions.

And then. That person decides to not answer your text in the exact moment you needed them to. Or maybe they forgot to fix something around the house they said they would take care of. Or maybe, in the case of friendships, they forgot to invite you to the event they were hosting. And then. Those desires to glorify the Lord? To love and show kindness to others? Those can be so easily replaced by other sinful desires to make sure that person knows how much they messed up. To make sure they know how upset you are. To maybe decide the best way to do that is to just not talk to them at all. 

It makes me a little sad just writing that even. Because I’ve lived it out, and I know the pain and separation in a relationship that kind of response brings. But praise God HE has given a better way. And He has provided the ability for His children to live in that better way through the saving power of Christ setting them free from the shackles of sin, able to grow and change and mature into people who better display Him back at others, rather than displaying their own old unkind words and actions. 

So if you’re like me and find your words so often betraying the person you want to live like toward those around you, so unlike what is acceptable in the sight of our precious LORD, what are some practical steps you could take? Perhaps praying Psalm 19:14 to the LORD, confessing the ways in which your words and heart meditations have fallen short of pleasing and exalting your Savior, could be a good place to begin.

Perhaps also make it a goal to choose to thank that person for a few things every day, or however often makes sense for the relationship it is, choosing to think more about the good they do than on the ways they fail…like we so often do too. And maybe before speaking, pause and ask yourself, “Is this worth the closeness of our relationship?” Or as Tilly shared in the podcast, “What is more important…maintaining intimacy, or being right?” And most importantly, “Would saying this be acceptable in the eyes of my Savior?” I know asking myself those questions would likely help me speak a lot differently, and also, likely a lot less. 

Praise God He is so patient with us! And praise God He wants to help us show His patience and love to others through the powerful instrument of our tongues. May we pray for His help to do that each day.