I half-hesitate to even write this post. I hope and pray my heart is right in this. This subject has been on my mind for quite a while now. I'd like to speak about words and their meanings. The Lord put quite a few verses on my heart once I started looking up words in the dictionary.
I'll start with a personal testimony. Growing up, my parents never allowed us to use words such as gosh, darn, etc. And I'm very thankful for that. About a year ago I started using the word "crikey" in my conversations. My mom so kindly pointed out that I should be aware of the meaning of the word. The word "crikey" means Christ. That humbled me so much. I asked the Lord's forgiveness for my carelessness/ignorance, and He granted it to me. I don't know if I ever thanked my mom for pointing this out to me, but I'm truly thankful for her love in showing me my error. (Thank you, Mom)
Let me share some of the verses the Lord put on my heart:
"Let the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be accecptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer." Psalm 19:14
"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." Matthew 12:36
"For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain." Psalm 139:20
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17
"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 12:2
"Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" James 3:10,11
The words we choose to use, especially as Christians, are extremely important. And they DO matter. Our God hears every single one of them. Here are some words that we may not realize what their meanings truly are. I found these definitions at dictionary.com
darn- to curse; dam*
gosh- used as an exclamation or mild oath: euphemistic alteration of God
dang- dam* (used euphemistically)
shoot- alteration of sh*t
heck- euphemistic alteration of hell
freaking- echoing frigging and f**king
crikey- euphemistic for Christ
and this one really surprised me; I looked it up b/c I was curious where it came from-
jeepers creepers- euphemistic alteration of Jesus
I feel weird even typing those out. I hope this will be a help. Some may say I'm nitpicking (sp?). I've fallen so short, but God is good and merciful and kind. And thankfully, forgiving.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Words have meanings
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5 comments:
Well put, my love. Carry on.
Thanks for this post Sarah. I am especially thankful to hear the second verse you shared. This has opened my eyes as I did not realize all those meanings. I will start paying more attention to the words that I say and see if they all truely glorify God. Thanks Sarah!
Thanks for pointing those out. It is easy to substitute other words for the "bad" ones, but our intentions are inevitably the same.
Oh, Mr. Bassett! Memories flood in. He was my 8th grade teacher at my Christian school. He was strict as they come and would make us do all things with excellence. We would sign the book for saying any version of any word and he must have done his research, because all of the things from your list were no-no's. We hated it and grumbled like crazy. We made fun of him. Now... I think, no - I know, he was right. I should look him up and tell him thanks.
I won't say I'm perfect in this area. The slang pops out during games like Ping-Pong or Blokus, I know that sounds silly. But I liked how you pointed out our intentions.
It also made me think of a John Piper devotion about anger. If you are angry at your computer for messing up, you are still angry, even though it seems innocent. It's such an issue of the heart. This makes even things like "rats!" or "crud!" have to be somewhat analyzed if my heart's grumbly.
Thanks for this insightful post. It made me think a lot.
far to go in the slang deptartment... if i look back i can see the progression from sailor mouth - in a very bad way - in jr. high - college...to slang, to moderate use of slang...to now. still far to go. maybe by the time i'm dead i'll have my heart spic and span.
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