You never know where a blog idea may come from. For instance this one came about from reading a verse in Proverbs, the same week I watched X Men III, The Final Conflict. Bloody Words, The Video, to the best of my knowledge does not exist. Rather it is my concept for the video, that this entry is more or less about.
We'll start with the verse in Proverbs and this will all start to make more sense as I go along.
Proverbs 12:6 The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, But the mouth of the upright will deliver them. NAS
It was the first part—the words of the wicked lie in wait for blood—that caught my attention. It got me thinking about the whole idea of how words can be used as weapons. Think of some of the terms used to describe the use of words: low blow, cut like a knife, that really stung, and I'm sure plenty more that I'm simply blanking on right now. The point is, they are all associated with the idea of physical pain or violence. In James 3:8 it refers to the tongue as a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
Which brings us to the X Men influence and the idea for the video, which gives a visual that I hope might be helpful. In the movie, Jean Gray's mutant power allowed her to do essentially anything with her mind, which included inflicting wound after wound on Wolverine, who, with his mutant power of self repair, promptly healed himself of each wound until he was able to save the world (a very simplified description of the scene). So it was this visual image, recently burned into my brain, accompanied with the verse in Proverbs, that brought me to Bloody Words, The Video.
The video would start with a little girl standing in front of the camera, when a male voice (intended to be her father) starts yelling at her "your stupid" "I can't believe you did that" things of that sort and through the use of special effects, a physical wound (most likely something along the lines of being cut with a knife) is inflicted on the girl with each thing that is yelled—bloody words. It's not something that would be easy to watch even without the wounds, but with them, it would be that much harder and therefore, as I see it, that much more effective in driving home the idea of just how wounding words can be. Other scenes could be: a husband yelling at his wife, a wife making cutting remarks to her husband, a boss to his employee, kids picking on another kid, people gossiping about someone, all with the same result of physical wounds being inflicted. Less blatant and yet potentially just as damaging things like sarcasm or the very self centered, I-care-more-about-me-than-you, parental phrase "you know what you do reflects on me" should also be included.
Then follow all that up with people (I think it should be the same voices as did the wounding) saying loving positive things and with each thing said, a wound heals. But the mouth of the upright will deliver them.
James 3:10 puts it like this: from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.
With words we have the power to wound and to heal. It's our choice. How easy it is to go on wounding when the scars are inside and we don't immediately see the damage. Imagine if when we started in on one of our kids, with the first wrong thing said, we saw a cut appear on their cheek and blood started flowing down their face . . . would we continue? I don't think so. I think it would stop us dead in our tracks and bring us to our knees in tear filled repentance.
Bloody Words: a strong visual image that just might help us think twice before we wound again.
Additional Thoughts
I posted this blog last night and after listening to a Living On the Edge podcast this morning, I wanted to add some additional thoughts.
The title of the broadcast was How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Heart - Part 1* and while there where a number of things that tied into the theme of the blog, what stood out for me was Luke 6:45.
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. NIV
If we have blood dripping from our mouths on a regular basis, we need to ask ourselves "where are those bloody words coming from, where is my heart at?" Maybe we need to be praying "Lord my mouth is speaking blood, I need Spirit filling, help me to be yielded to the Spirit so the fruit that overflows from my heart is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control, and not bloody words".
PS To both of my loyal blog readers that I know about, and any others that might be out there, you may have noticed this is my second post in one month. . . don't get used to it.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Filled Smiles
This entry came about from a song in church this morning. It was the first song of the service (yes I was there in time for the first song, thanks to some Holy Spirit conviction delivered via a Chip Ingram Living On the Edge podcast) and was a fairly typical, contemporary, not very theologically deep, worship song, (don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash those types of songs, I have a playlist full of them on my ipod) when a line came up that caught my attention:
When we laugh fill our smiles with You.
My first thought was "huh. . . what is that supposed to mean" and seeing as I was now fully distracted from singing the song, I thought about it and I don't know if I came up with what the writer intended it to mean (I later found out it's the song Our Love is Loud by the David Crowder band) I did come up with my idea of what it could mean.
The gist of it is the question: what do we smile at or what do we laugh at? In other words: what's the motivation behind our smile or laugh?
There are a lot of things in our society, media in particular, that people laugh at, that—from a Biblical or Christian world view perspective—we should not be laughing at. From sexually explicit "humor" to the Don Rickles extreme-put-down, make-fun-of-others, sort of "humor" (much of which I've laughed at) television, movies, and the rest of it, is full of stuff that is meant to be funny. However, at the time we are smiling or laughing at any of it, it is very safe to say that are smiles are not filled with—as the song puts it—You.
There a couple of quotes related to this that I like and were in fact what set me on this line of thinking in the first place. There are two from Joshua Harris's book Not Even a Hint (about sexual purity) and one from a John Piper Sermon. Even though they are very similar, I include all three.
Jesus Christ died to rescue me from darkness and sin. How can I willingly immerse myself in that darkness for the sake of entertainment? What a tragedy it is that I’ve sat idly by during movies and television shows and watched the very sin for which Christ had to die being laughed about, even celebrated.
Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p124,125
Why would I want to gain enjoyment or soak my mind in the sins that Jesus had to shed His blood to free us from?
Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p125
My parents almost never went to movies and I almost never go to movies. The reason is very simple: there are almost no movies that don't ask me to be entertained by attitudes, motives, and actions which Jesus died to eradicate.
John Piper
Strong but very true words. I really could have just posted the intro, the quotes, said Amen and been done.
So where does that leave us? Does that really mean we shouldn't watch Seinfeld reruns? I'll leave that up to you, however, speaking as one who has watched a lot of Seinfeld reruns (I really don't watch TV at home but when I'm in Branson for three months with cable and time. . .) let's just say that some of my other options could have been: reading one of the many books I brought with, video chatting with my wife without trying to read the closed captioning at the same time, going to bed, and dare I say it—praying. Which is to say, when I stand before my Maker someday and am asked to give account for the time I spent watching Seinfeld reruns in Branson, MO . . . I got nothing.
Watch little kids at play. More often than not, their smiles and laughter have a You filled, innocent wonder, excitement, and joy of living, that we don't tend to show enough of in our adult lives. It's worth trying to cultivate more of that, as well as being more aware of when our smiles have a less than wholesome filling.
When we laugh let our smiles be filled with You.
A fluffy, meaningless line from a feel-good worship song? You be the judge. As for me, I say no.
When we laugh fill our smiles with You.
My first thought was "huh. . . what is that supposed to mean" and seeing as I was now fully distracted from singing the song, I thought about it and I don't know if I came up with what the writer intended it to mean (I later found out it's the song Our Love is Loud by the David Crowder band) I did come up with my idea of what it could mean.
The gist of it is the question: what do we smile at or what do we laugh at? In other words: what's the motivation behind our smile or laugh?
There are a lot of things in our society, media in particular, that people laugh at, that—from a Biblical or Christian world view perspective—we should not be laughing at. From sexually explicit "humor" to the Don Rickles extreme-put-down, make-fun-of-others, sort of "humor" (much of which I've laughed at) television, movies, and the rest of it, is full of stuff that is meant to be funny. However, at the time we are smiling or laughing at any of it, it is very safe to say that are smiles are not filled with—as the song puts it—You.
There a couple of quotes related to this that I like and were in fact what set me on this line of thinking in the first place. There are two from Joshua Harris's book Not Even a Hint (about sexual purity) and one from a John Piper Sermon. Even though they are very similar, I include all three.
Jesus Christ died to rescue me from darkness and sin. How can I willingly immerse myself in that darkness for the sake of entertainment? What a tragedy it is that I’ve sat idly by during movies and television shows and watched the very sin for which Christ had to die being laughed about, even celebrated.
Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p124,125
Why would I want to gain enjoyment or soak my mind in the sins that Jesus had to shed His blood to free us from?
Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p125
My parents almost never went to movies and I almost never go to movies. The reason is very simple: there are almost no movies that don't ask me to be entertained by attitudes, motives, and actions which Jesus died to eradicate.
John Piper
Strong but very true words. I really could have just posted the intro, the quotes, said Amen and been done.
So where does that leave us? Does that really mean we shouldn't watch Seinfeld reruns? I'll leave that up to you, however, speaking as one who has watched a lot of Seinfeld reruns (I really don't watch TV at home but when I'm in Branson for three months with cable and time. . .) let's just say that some of my other options could have been: reading one of the many books I brought with, video chatting with my wife without trying to read the closed captioning at the same time, going to bed, and dare I say it—praying. Which is to say, when I stand before my Maker someday and am asked to give account for the time I spent watching Seinfeld reruns in Branson, MO . . . I got nothing.
Watch little kids at play. More often than not, their smiles and laughter have a You filled, innocent wonder, excitement, and joy of living, that we don't tend to show enough of in our adult lives. It's worth trying to cultivate more of that, as well as being more aware of when our smiles have a less than wholesome filling.
When we laugh let our smiles be filled with You.
A fluffy, meaningless line from a feel-good worship song? You be the judge. As for me, I say no.
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