Is it kind?

Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? - three helpful filters for our thoughts before they exit our mouths as words. All of us are brought up learning about the power and importance of the words we say to one another. All of us know the wounds of harsh, critical, or untrue words, just as we hopefully have received the healing and uplifting gift of kind and thoughtful ones. Our experience, alongside good parents and teachers, helps us to reign over our most disobedient body part. And even so, we still spend our whole lives taming our tongue, learning when to bite it, learning when to unleash it - and learning to apologize when we get it all wrong.

All of this is necessary for life together.

And yet, there are words we do not check; words we sometimes let fly with unbridled hatred or loathing or shame; words that are poison; words that condemn and accuse and tear down; words worse than the comments section of a news article. They are the words we say to our reflection; the definition we give to ourselves.

How often do I stop and pay attention to my inner voice? Do I listen when I speak with others about myself - my past or my potential? Would we ever speak about another person that way? I daresay you and I were raised better than that.

Earlier this month, we remembered the death and resurrection of Jesus as we celebrated Easter. Many of us are professed believers and know we have been given eternal life through this sacrifice. We have received forgiveness for our sins; freedom from our bondage.

And yet.

We persist in speaking words of death over ourselves instead of life. We speak condemnation instead of restoration. We speak shame instead of honor.

In essence, we nail ourselves up there on the cross, understanding all our sins need to be punished, but missing the entire point: They already were.

When we punish ourselves with thoughts and words, we reject the Truth of the Cross. We reject the blood that was spilled. We reject Jesus.

On the surface, it seems a gift impossible to reject; neither you nor I will be punished - now or in eternity. It is finished.

But as I hear people I love speak as though Jesus nailed them to the cross instead of Himself, I have to wonder. Despite our efforts to speak kind, true, and necessary words to each other, who is teaching us what to speak over ourselves? If you are a believer, is there a disconnect between what you profess has been done for you and what you profess about who you are?

I sit and I talk. I know my own pitfalls as I speak with friends and family and strangers. I long that I could give kinder words - I long that I would be quicker and bolder to speak truth with love - I long that I would be slower to criticize or be sarcastic. When we speak to others, the words come from a deep well within us. Our words are birthed by our hearts and filtered through our minds. Are we bitter - or jealous - or generous - or joyful? If I want to be kinder to others - and I do - I need to check my heart, for as my heart is, so go my words.

I sit and I listen - because the words we speak to ourselves - I wonder if those words don’t come from a different source; from a well filled with Holy (or unholy) water, or from a root system of our core beliefs. Do we speak to ourselves the words we believe God - however you conceive Him - speaks to us?

I wonder.

Is your “God” condemning you, disappointed in you, angry with you, or ashamed of you? Has He abandoned you?

Or does He love you?

Only one is true of our Father.

Listen, listen, listen, for whatever core belief you have rooted in your spirit, so go your words to yourself. Don’t further condemn your poor reflection for whatever you may find, go see a gardener and dig up what’s hurting you.

And thankfully, you and I know a Gardener who specializes in removing unwelcome roots. He reaches to the deepest and darkest places. In fact, He once hung on a tree to make sure we never would.

So go! Speak kind, true, and necessary words out in the world. Do what your parents taught you. Be kind to others, and - for you are loved by God - be kind to yourself.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

John 3:16-17