Women
I once had a friend-an upstate New Yorker-who moved to Tennessee. One day, while exploring her new southern digs, she came across a man sitting on the curb and massaging his ankle.
"Are you okay?" my friend asked.
"Well, I'm feeling like a bald tire in a mud hole," the man said with a grimace. "You see, I hunched down and craned my ankle-now it's swelled up and turned proud." He pointed to his ankle. "Look at that-why, it's fatter than a guard dog at the sausage factory!"
Um...sure...if you say so.
As a daughter of the south-Tennessee originally and Georgia presently- let me translate. No, the man was not okay. He was stuck there on the curb, unable to get up. Why? Because he'd tripped and sprained his ankle. The swelling was really bad.
It was as simple as that, but my friend would have needed to be at least half-fluent in Southern Speak to discipher the man's comment.
Ah, the language of the south! Mark Twain called it music and I agree-the elegant southern drawls, the deep-fried twangs-I love them all. And our crazy-clever expressions? Truly, they set us a part-you can criss-cross the globe and immerse yourself in a dozen cultures, but folks-you've got to go below the Mason-Dixon to hear this one:
Well, butter my rump and call me a biscuit!
For most southerners, the give-away is the accent. When we southerners open our mouths...
The world knows we belong to Dixie.
What about us Christians? When we open our mouths...
Does the world know we belong to Christ?
In Matthew 12:34, Jesus says, "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." (NIV)
In James 3,our tongues are compared to the very small rudder that can steer a large ship, and to the small spark that can set a great forest on fire.
So much for that old ado about sticks and stones. Words don't matter? If that's true, then Jesus would have never said, "For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matthew 12:37, NIV).
So how, exactly, is a Christian to speak? "Thou shalt have that report finished by five"? "Congratulations on begetting your first child"? Sure, but only if we want to be deemed-as we say down south-nuttier than peanut brittle.
We all know that speech paints a portrait of character. And for Christians, speech should radiate the character of Jesus Christ.
If I had to sum up the character of Jesus in one word, it would be LOVE. It was the foundation and motivation of everything He said, did and continues to do in our lives today. In 2 John 6, we read, "As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love." (NIV)
And what is love? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (I Corinthians 13: 4-7, NIV)
Though it's sometimes hard in this hurry-hurry, high-stress world, our speech should reflect those qualities, whether we're disciplining a child, dealing with justifiable anger or facing off with the fast food kid who insists we said "load on the onions" instead of "hold off the onions."
While our demeanor of speech is important, though, it isn't enough to fully express our Lord.
"Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that confess his name." (Hebrews 13:15, NIV)
Think of the words that cross our lips in the course of a day! According to Gary Smalley, author of Making Love Last Forever,1 it's 12,000 for men and 25,000 for women. (Okay guys, hold the comments.) That's a lot of revealing words. Consider what people can learn about us from a ten minute conversation-our views on global warming, our opinion of the president, who should win the Super Bowl, the details of our last root canal and the fascinating fact that shellfish breaks us out in hives.
But does our conversation reveal that we're Christians? Do we drop-in the Lord's name, or do we drop it out? These days, political correctness slams us from every direction, but I see no place in the Bible where that offers an excuse to clam up about the Lord. In 2 Timothy 1:7-8, we're taught that God "did not give us a spirit of timidity" and told "do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord."
When that spirit of timidity tries to silence me, I find it helps to remember this: I have nothing to be ashamed of Jesus for; He, on the other hand, has plenty to be ashamed of me for-yet, He still calls me by name (John 10:3) and petitions His Father in my defense. (1 John 2:1)
We, in turn, should be ready to stand up for our Christian faith.
In 1 Peter 3:15, we're instructed to "set apart Christ as Lord" and "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (NIV)
With words wrapped in love, we need a statement of faith, a declaration as to why we believe what we believe. Armed with truth, we should be able to back up what we say with scripture. I don't know about you, but I've been caught off guard, so questioned and even challenged that I was left feeling-to use another southern term-as flustered as a barn mouse in a silo full of tom cats.
As for my friend who had the curbside conversation, she ended up staying in the south. After awhile, she even started to talk like us.
I guess you could say we won her over.
Christians are called to do the same by winning souls to Christ-so let's "spit out the cud and speak up."
Or, as they say in the Bible, "Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day." (Psalms 96:2, NIV)
(c)Donna G. Morton, September 2005
1Word Publishing, 1996
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Excellent! Good flow except for the overuse of the dash at the beginning. Good writing, great message. Kept me interested from a writing standpoint and the Word. Write on, Sister, Write on!
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