Today, I want to encourage you, like it says in James 1:19, “Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” You know, I think about when I first was married and my husband and I were really learning how to set the culture for our home, and we were learning how our family was going to be different than the families that we were raised in. Now mind you, we were both from great families. However, I’m from New York and my parents definitely have a different way of communicating than his parents from Texas do. And you know, in my house we’re more confrontational and we just bring it all up to the surface and we say exactly what we mean to say, which is good. But, it’s just a different form of communication than my husband had in his family growing up, and we really learned how to just weigh a lot more of what we said to each other.
And so I learned very early on that it’s actually not wisdom to say everything that I want to say, even if it’s true. And that’s actually true in every single area of life. Even, you know, when you are in relationship with someone, sometimes you do need to call them higher and into truth. But, there are also times that it’s actually not going to be edifying to call out things that they can’t change. It’s actually not going to be helpful to call out things that won’t be helpful about a situation. It’s actually sometimes really good to be productive in those interactions, and not be so passionate that you just say every single thing that comes into your head.
And so I really want to encourage you in your interactions today to really think through like, is what I’m about to say going to actually move the situation forward or be edifying to the other person on the other side of this interaction? Or am I just saying this to get it off my chest? Am I just saying this so that I feel better? If there’s things that you feel like, oh my goodness, this is true, but it really doesn’t need to be said, then bring it to the Lord, bring it to a journal. Maybe even bring it to wise council. But I would just encourage you to speak words of life today and not tear anyone down with your words. This is especially true with people that we love, with people that we feel familiar with, with family members. You know, if you are going into a birthday or a holiday or something, I know it can be very tense, because you feel a level of comfort, right? This is definitely true of marriages. Like how often can we nitpick the other person when it’s just not necessary?
So I want to encourage you today to be slow to speak and slow to anger as well, and really focus on being encouraging and productive in your interactions. I bless you today, and I bless you to have wisdom in this area.