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The Sound of Silence

April 11, 2017 | by: Tom Kruggel | 0 comments

the-sound-of-silence

“Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose.” [Proverbs 18:21 (MSG)] And some of the most toxic words directed toward me have sucked the life right out. They’ve pierced my heart and poured through my veins like venom. I’m willing to give almost anything to make them mute. And though they’re muffled now, they occasionally sneak out of remission. It’s been said that “time heals all wounds”. I’m not so sure, but it does have a way of numbing them.

the-sound-of-silence-w1Oddly, it’s not only the words outside of us that are lethal, but those inside too; they’re the sound of silence. And some of the deadliest are the ones we conceive that others think and speak about us, but are most likely not. It’s those nagging, imagined and embedded MP3’s that repeat over and over and over again within our brains just how awful we must be to them.

But we’ve never actually heard those words, not audibly. My ever-so-wise wife has occasionally reminded me that people do not have you on their mind as much as you might wish. How prideful of me, especially to think I have the clairvoyance of God. Why do we assume some are conjuring such unsavory thoughts and conversations? Perhaps a sliver of the question is answered already.

tom-kruggelOn the other hand, some of the deadliest words inside of us actually are the ones we say about others but never allow them to come out of our mouths. “Such self-control”, we say, but it’d be better if they never took root in the first place. “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled” [Hebrews 12:15 (ESV)], including us. And once they’ve taken hold, some deep weeding needs to take place to uproot them. Just how did those pesky little seedlings plant themselves there in the first place?

Our good friend and Apostle Paul provides a sure-fire cure here, and it has everything to do with the core craving of every human heart, love – what it genuinely looks like and where it comes from. And seeing what something looks like is often best seen by looking at what it doesn’t look like; and Paul says love doesn’t look at all like either of the two thought temptations identified above. It doesn’t look like the self-deprecating conjecture that others see us pejoratively, and most certainly doesn’t look like the condescension we sometimes cast upon others.

It doesn’t look like the self-deprecating conjecture that others see us pejoratively, and most certainly doesn’t look like the condescension we sometimes cast upon others. “…love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing”. [I Corinthians 13:4b-6a (ESV)] To presume a mischaracterization from another is nothing short of “rude” (almost a “how dare you”), and to cast a mischaracterization upon another is altogether “resentful” (most certainly a “how dare you”). Not lovely at all.

So then what does love look like, Paul?

“Love is patient and kind… rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” [I Corinthians 4a, 6b-7 (ESV)] Why, it seems to actually look more like the patience and kindness that affords a benefit-of-the-doubt (we’ve never walked a mile in their moccasins), and also like one that bears and believes and endures, while resisting the lure to fabricate another’s mental aspersions (they’ve never walked a mile in ours). Love, this sort, is not a sweet, lofty adjective or guideline (as much as our culture would like to describe and believe otherwise), but an embracing verb, a call to action.

A danger here with Paul’s Great Love Chapter [I Corinthians 13] is familiarity, which can occasionally breed a measure of ‘ho-hum’ at the expense of over exposure. A Corinthian Christian would have received his perceptive disclosure as anything but lovely, and rather as a harsh rebuke – they were all about themselves, their greatness, their giftedness, their decency and their loveliness, something we San Franciscans may also identify with. They could make themselves look and sound lovely and loving, and so can we, but that’s not love, and certainly not the “greatest”. [I Corinthians 13:13b (ESV)]

the-sound-of-silence-w2But now to the heart of it all - the heart of words and the heart of love… because grinding out a stronger self-image, believing in yourself and becoming virtuous are not the anecdotes to erasing those fictitious words that others may find you unlovely or to expunge the conception of words that others are unlovely.

Let’s not mistake a false sense of humility or willpower for love. Neither let us beat ourselves up, because the beating’s already been done [cf. Isaiah 53:4; Luke 22:63 (ESV)]. Rather, let’s look at love, where it originates and where words of love emanate.

You see, if we start with love then we’ve got to first come to grips with the realization that love, the kind we truly need, simply cannot be found within us, but only in someone other than us, someone that is actually love itself, personified. Because… love is a Person. And since “God is love” [I John 4:8b (ESV)], and He is also a Person [cf. John 1:1, 14; Hebrews 1:8], then God and love are found in the Person of Jesus. And, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us…” [I John 3:16a (ESV)] And then He was raised [cf. Acts 2:24]. Jesus and His love are alive, and active and supernatural. They take hold of us, get a grip on us and breathe words of life into us, because He is the “Word of Life” [I John 1:1c (NASB)]. This is power that enraptures and changes from the inside out.

In Jesus, we can nothe-sound-of-silence-w3w see and speak of ourselves and others for who we really are, for who they really are. Both equally desperate for forgiveness, desperate for love and desperate for Him. We’re all broken. And now in Him there is “no condemnation” [Romans 8:1]. He broke for us. In Him we are

He broke for us. In Him we are “a new creation” [II Corinthians 5:17a (ESV)], a precious bride [Revelation 19:7], a magnum opus [cf. Ephesians 2:10]; that’s the authentic lens by which we’re seen and by which we’re known and by which we’re spoken of. And with this, with Him, our sound of silence, unsaid words either self-directed inward or aimed outward, need no longer be poison, but fruit, and O’ how sweet that fruit is.

Thomas Kruggel is a non-vocational Elder at Grace Bible Church
and works in the City of San Francisco

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