Researchers say that women speak around twenty-thousand words a day. By the end of a year, the average woman will have spoken 7.3 million words! Unfortunately, not all the words that come out of our mouths come from a heart of love. I have spoken in haste and regretted my words many times. Have you ever regretted any words you’ve said? I’m assuming we all have. Words are tricky: Once we say them, we cannot unsay them. For some reason, when I was a teenager, I expressed many harsh words. My comments may have been truthful, but I did not say them in a loving way. I had learned the “speaking the truth” part of today’s reading, but I was yet to discover the revelation that we do so “in love.”
Truth without love hurts others. Wisdom comes when we speak in a way that allows others to receive our words well. Before we speak the truth, we ask ourselves whether our words are motivated by the kind of love Paul mentions in these verses, which he explains in his first letter to the church at Corinth: Love is patient, kind, not jealous, not proud, not self-seeking, not angry, and keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:4-8).
When we speak the truth in love, our words can build up our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. The good news today is that we can speak the truth with God’s kind of love. As we do so, we grow in Christ and become more like him.
I don’t know your word count for the year, but I pray that all your words come from a heart committed to God’s kind of love, love that builds up community in the body of Christ.