Day 24: 3 Ways to Simplify our Speech

Simple speech. Oh my. I’m afraid I’m not the best person to address this topic, as the Lord knows I have made some royal blubbers both in tongue and in blog writing. God is a graceful God who teaches me through those mishaps, and the following is what I know to be true.

3 Ways to Simplify Our Speech

1. The best way to simplify our speech is through knowing the Word of God and having it deeply ingrained in your body, mind, and soul.

We saturate ourselves and our tongues through meditating and reading the Word, listening to the Word through sermons at church, bible studies, online sermons/studies, and radio, and seeking to memorize and hide it in your heart. Often, for me, God’s Word hides in my heart even when I’ve not been intentional to hide it there. I would also add that you should never underestimate the power given to a young child who has memorized the Word. It will feed them years after they’ve learned it in ways they may not realize. Why? Because the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. Amazing and true!

Why does Scripture saturation simplify our speech? Because the more Scripture we know, the more we allow God’s truth to abide in us. The Spirit works in us and out of the “overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” James says that we cannot tame our tongues, but when we abide in truth, we allow God in us to grow bigger, and He can tame our tongues.

2. The second way to simplify our speech is to be quiet and listen.

We all want to be heard and received, known and loved. Sometimes that means we put ourselves before others even as we speak to them. Being quiet by nature, I have waffled between never heard to trying hard to speak up to be heard, but the best is always just to listen and speak when given opportunity. In Christianity, the Bible says we are a body. Each member has a special task, and we honor other members by treating them with equal respect and dignity and as better than ourselves. Imagine if someone with great credentials came to visit you in your house today. You would go out of your way to cater to them, welcome them, serve them. Well, every day you get to speak to royalty: when you meet a neighbor on the street, when you talk to the cashier at the grocery store, when you mother your kids. This is how the Bible says to treat others as better than ourselves. You show deep respect and honor to all people when you stoop down and listen.

3. The third way to simplify our speech is to speak the truth in love.

Listen to this quote by Foster,

If you consent to do a task, do it. Avoid flattery and half-truths. Make honesty and integrity the distinguishing characteristics of your speech. Reject jargon and abstract speculation whose purpose is to obscure and impress rather than to illuminate and inform.

Plain speech is difficult because we so seldom live out f the divine Center, so seldom respond only to heavenly promptings. Often fear of what others may think or a hundred other motives determine our ‘yes’ or ‘no’ rather than obedience to divine urgings. Then if a more attractive opportunity arises we quickly reverse our decision. But if our speech comes out of obedience to the divine Center, we will find no reason to turn our ‘yes’ into ‘no’ and our ‘no’ into ‘yes.’ We will be living in simplicity of speech because our words will have only one Source. Soren Keirkegaard writes: ‘If thou art absolutely obedient to God, then there is no ambiguity in thee and…thou are mere simplicity before God…One thing there is which all Satan’s cunning and all the snares of temptation cannot take by surprise, and that is simplicity.’

Let Ephesians 4:29 be your speech motto, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

This post is one in a series of posts of 31 days of Simplicity. To read the rest of the series, please click the icon below:

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Photo Credit: Sharon Mollerus

Linking up in these places today: Thriving Thursdays, Hearts for Home, Desire to Inspire, Thrive at Home, and Proverbs31 Thursdays