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.
Ephesians 4:29 (NIV)
Fitted to the One Listening
The report card is on the counter, and the father has about four seconds to decide what he says first. He can see the grade that slipped. His son is in the next room with the door half open, already braced for it.
These were believers packed into one city, running into each other at the market and on the same streets every week. A man who has been stealing is told to go find work so he will have money to give away. Paul works through their habits one at a time, and talk is one of them.
Helpful for building others up according to their needs. The standard is in the other person, and it moves. The same words can be right in one house and useless in the next one down the street, and you can’t meet a need you never bothered to learn.
A rule about which words are off limits can be memorized in an afternoon. Knowing what the boy in the next room needs tonight takes attention. A doctor who never asks where it hurts is guessing, however good the medicine in his bag. The boy may need the grade named by a father who isn’t angry. Or he has been naming it to himself all week and needs twenty minutes of anything else.
That it may benefit those who listen. The reason comes with the instruction, and you will usually not find out how it went. You get to control whether you learned anything about him before you opened your mouth.
What would that father have to ask to find out what his son needs, and how long would he have to stay quiet to hear the answer?
A Prayer to Remember
God, I walk into rooms with my part already written, and I deliver it, and I call that being honest. The people in my house hear it and put it away somewhere I can’t see. You know which of my words landed and which ones did damage, and I don’t.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
