.: our heaviest words :.

You would never know, but often times, humor hurts. No offense intended does not always mean no offense at all. My advice? Please be careful what you say! Before every word you speak, before every thought is formed into audible phrases, think thoroughly about what you are planning to say. For it is by the very things that we say that we present ourselves. In a way that we so often miss, when we speak about anything and everything, we are at some level speaking about ourselves. When we share our thoughts, we are sharing a vision of ourselves with that other person. Better yet, we are casting that vision upon them as a sort of outline to go by. Our opinions carry our fingerprints, and what we say to that soul right across from us places a certain weight upon them to think (and thus act) as you yourself do. Even the medium of humor! And in that, we must proceed with caution for our words have the power to both bring life, as well as steal it from another person. It is through our words that we exercise the power to both encourage and discourage. And as we have so often witnessed first hand, our words can soon provoke a battle of sorts, whether or not we intend to do so. We choose to mindlessly throw out a statement based upon even the slightest whim, only to find out moments to years after that it was a spark to the fire that soon consumed our listener and us. I admit that there is a fire within me, even as I write these words myself - one that feels out of control. And with that comes the urging to fuel it even higher with words of my own. We all reach a point where we become sick of being told "how it is" or even "how it is going to be". Something within us clenches with incredible force as that other individual goes head-to-head with us by means of a flippant comment. Take a step back and we quickly realize that what is important to us is not as important to the one who spoke so casually to us. They intended humor, but it felt like a jab. They intended sarcasm, but it felt like a direct attack. What was unintentional felt like something more, and we are suddenly off to the races in terms of our response. No doubt that they would be sorry for what they said. But how we go about prompting that says something about us as well. Serve and return - it is as simple as that! I guess that the irritation plants itself within us when we are exposed by someone who has no clue that they are doing so. It would be one thing if they intended to go up against us. That sort of thing we could plan for. But when their verbal guns are unloaded on us with the hope of getting some laughs, we are instantly set up to play the fool when we over-respond and go straight for their jugular. We generally have little to no real understanding of what kind of day someone is having. We have no idea what emotional weight they are carrying at any given moment. So when we run free with our words and carry out our tactless agenda of self-indulgence, we set that person up to take the fall for our momentary advantage and glory. We intend to disarm that person with humor, only to leave them bleeding under their armor. Needless to say, some of our God-given gifts (in terms of our individual personality) can just as easily be used for harm as they can be for good. The only problem is that we assume the later reality without any healthy sense or awareness of the former. All such situations call for liberating grace on the part of both the wounder and the wounded. Grace to set another person free, as well as the grace to never oppress them in the first place. But this also includes the grace to release a person from their thoughtlessness in that moment. We release them from every social "I.O.U." that they write through a verbal faux pas. But that capacity calls for incredible strength from the Father, as well as distance from the need to protect our own reputation. May we be the kinds of people that seek personal and public peace above a successful punch line! We must work at perfecting our holy hush, knowing that humor can end up being some of our heaviest words spoken.