Ep 21: What Would You Say?

As we explore the Discipleship Dilemma, let’s talk about another indicator of the hidden ideas in our hearts: our words.

What do our words tell us about the secrets in our spirits?  As it turns out, they tell us plenty about the inner recesses of our roots and soil. Today, we explore three facets of our words: the volume of words we use, the words we use instinctually, and the words we don’t use.  Though talk is cheap, we can nonetheless dig beneath the surface with God and trusted friends to uncover our hearts by studying what we do and don’t say.  

If you need a great visual aid, check out the Heartview picture on the site’s Resources tab. 

TRANSCRIPTION

Ep 21: Words as Spiritual Indicators

Intro: Welcome to the Soil and Roots podcast: digging beneath the surface to uncover the hidden ideas that shape us, the church, and the culture.

I’m Brian Fisher. 

This is Episode 21: What Would You Say?

Welcome back! We’re in the middle of Season 2, and we’re focusing on the Discipleship Dilemma. For our character to be formed more like that of Jesus, we desire to know His heart, and we also commit to uncovering our own hearts. Exploring our hearts and stories is not necessarily a hallmark of modern Christianity, thus the dilemma.  

Our hearts are deceptive, mysterious, and complex, but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore them. Fortunately, we’re all wired with Eight Indicators that display the genuine ideas that power and govern us. We just need to pay attention to them with God and a trusted friend.  We call this process “Heartview,” and we’re spending this season studying what it is and how to practice it.

Today, we’re going to explore the sixth Heartview Indicator, our words.

Just a little bit of housekeeping before we dig in.  Season 1, the first 13 episodes, introduces the Great Omission, deep discipleship, and the hidden ideas that power and govern us.  At the end of that season, we noted that our current era faces three primary problems that create additional challenges for our spiritual formation: the Discipleship Dilemma, the Formation Gap, and the Forgotten Kingdom. 

We’re digging into the Discipleship Dilemma here in Season 2. Then in Season 3, we’ll head into a full exploration of the Formation Gap.  Plus, sometime in Season 3, I’ll be joined regularly by a new co-host so that you and I don’t have to listen to just me every week.  Down the road in Season 4, we’ll take a look at the Forgotten Kingdom.  Lots of great stuff ahead. Thanks for taking this journey with me. 

Ok, let’s dig in. 

Core Ideas

Despite what we think we believe about God, others, ourselves, and creation, our hearts often embrace other ideas. 

We tend to function from Six Core Ideas, fundamental assumptions buried deep into the recesses of our hearts, and these have a profound influence on how we live. Who are we, what are we, what are we worth, what authority do we have, what is our purpose, and what or whom do we truly love or desire?  Christians struggle with these Core ideas all the time, though many of us aren’t conscious of it.

There are two sets of ideas: one from the kingdom of light and one from the kingdom of darkness.  We embrace dark core ideas for many reasons.  Most of our ideas form when we’re very young, and we function from them for the rest of our lives, often transposing those initial ideas into our relationships today, including our relationship with God. 

Think about the young woman whose heart formed around an idea that she was only valuable when she behaved a certain way growing up.  So even though she worships God and reads her Bible, her heart may still function from a “performance-based” system.  If she performs well for God and others, her heart rests in her value. But if she messes up, sins, disappoints someone, or someone harms her, her heart begins to crumble because it embraces a dark idea of value rooted in her performance.  When she doesn’t or can’t perform well, her heart will express its confusion.

She’s probably not conscious of this Core Idea, but it shows up in her Eight Indicators: her thoughts, her emotions, her health, behavior, relationships, words, and how she uses time and money. 

She berates herself when she messes up, and she may struggle with anxiety.  She may be overly focused on her health or may not care much about it at all.  She may leave relationships when she feels she isn’t “performing” well.  And she probably uses her time in ways that validate her performance.  She is overly committed to work and church activities and struggles with burnout, yet won’t stop because she believes resting is a sign of weakness and underperformance.  

Another example is a man who grew up with a controlling parent.  He has dark ideas of power. 

He seeks to control his environment because that’s how his heart was formed.  He may marry a subservient wife, someone who is wonderful and nice but also enabling and indecisive.  His kids grow up in a home that isn’t just disciplined and orderly; it’s subconsciously molded to make sure the father isn’t embarrassed or questioned.  This doesn’t mean there is abuse. It just means the children don’t have much freedom to explore, fail, or question authority. 

He probably works in a job that appears stable and secure, one in which he unconsciously seeks to cultivate predictability. Or if he’s an entrepreneur, he’ll start companies that are overly dependent on him.  He has difficulty delegating. He has difficulty trusting others to do good work.  He may micro-manage or practice “dive-bomb management,” coming in at the last minute to continually save the day.  

He may be a warden with money. He keeps an overly tight rein on finances at home and in the workplace.  Because his heart was formed around the idea that power represents security and comfort, he will unconsciously attempt to control all sorts of variables, many of which are beyond his control.

Again, he may be a wonderful Christian man.  He may serve at church and lead a small group. From the outside, his family probably looks like they have it all together.  And they probably think they do.  But his heart is embracing a Core Idea of power that belongs to the kingdom of darkness, and he is passing it on to his wife and kids. And it’s inhibiting his spiritual formation to become more like Jesus and most likely hurting his loved ones. 

Unless we’re intentional and trained at exploring our Eight Heartview indicators, we plow through life thinking we’re becoming mature disciples because of the number of church activities we do or the number of Bible verses we memorize. Those are good things, but our hearts may not become more like Jesus’ heart. We may just be gathering information about Jesus and the Bible.  We become educated converts, not apprenticing disciples.

But talk really can be cheap, and we tend to be fabulous, sophisticated liars to ourselves and others. Christians are infamous for saying “Christian” words and phrases in all sorts of circumstances, hoping to score points.  How many times has someone said, “I’ll pray for you,” as you realize they weren’t paying attention to the need you just expressed, and they have no intention of praying for you? 

I mentioned last episode that our sixth indicator, our words, may be the least reliable of the eight.  I don’t mean that words aren’t an effective way of uncovering our hearts.  Exploring our words is a fantastic way of delving into our ideas and desires. 

Words

But since we spend so much time talking and using our words, they’re vital indicators of what’s really going on in our hearts. And exploring them is a fascinating practice. 

Jesus had a lot to say about words. In Matthew 12, He said,

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good, and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”[1]

Not that we have any real doubts, but if you’re questioning whether our words are indicators of the desires in our hearts, I’ll just repeat verse 34: “for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” 

James had some direct things to say about words, although his entire epistle is pretty blunt. In chapter 3, Jesus’ half-brother says:

“So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can saltwater produce fresh.”[2]

Let’s explore just a few ways that our words, whether spoken or written, point us to the deepest parts of our hearts.  We’re going to look at the volume of words we use, the words we use when we aren’t thinking, and the words we don’t say. 

Our Volume of Words 

Let’s talk about our volume of words.    

If you’re like me, you probably have some friends who are rather talkative folks.  While it seems to be true that men, overall, tend to use fewer words than women in day-to-day communication, being loquacious isn’t always gender specific.

And certainly, folks with extroverted, excitable characteristics can be talkative.  That’s just part of their personality. Others are verbal processors. They think out loud.  They use lots of words because that’s how they sort out information.   

But there’s a difference between someone who may just like to talk a lot and someone who dominates a conversation. Who won’t take a breath and, most importantly, is a poor listener.

They may be great storytellers and have insightful comments, but let’s be honest. They come across as domineering, impolite, maybe a touch arrogant, and selfish.  At some point, we end up concluding that a hyper-talkative person doesn’t care about anyone else’s story or opinion. They’re too busy sharing their own.

That’s a pretty clear indication of certain desires and ideas in their hearts.  Whether they’re trying to prove themselves, gain status, intimidate others, or prevent someone else from asking a question they may not know the answer to, a hyper-talkative person is generally someone with control issues, insecurities, or a deep need for attention.  And these symptoms point back to our Six Core Ideas. 

Someone who controls the conversation probably has dark ideas of power, maybe about value and identity.  They aren’t serving the person they’re talking to; they’re exerting power over them.  Someone who exerts power is generally someone who also has flawed ideas of identity. Instead of seeing themselves and others as equal, unique human beings created in God’s image, they unconsciously view themselves as better or feel deeply insecure. 

The Gospels provide insight into only a small fraction of Jesus’ social interactions while on the planet, but it’s clear that Jesus measured His words carefully and was deeply and intentionally engaged with people.  He listened very carefully.  He was intuitive, challenging, and at times uncomfortable in the way he probed people’s hearts. 

His conversation with the Syrophoenician woman is one of my all-time favorite stories. It’s in Matthew 15.

Jesus appears to ignore this Gentile woman who is begging Him to heal her demon-possessed little daughter.  The disciples get annoyed (as they often seem to), and Jesus further dismisses the woman by saying that He came for the lost sheep of Israel. In other words, He didn’t come for Gentiles, for her. 

She persists, and now it seems Jesus insults her. He tells her it isn’t good to give children’s bread to the dogs!  But she takes His comment and turns it around, reminding Jesus that even the dogs can eat the crumbs that fall off the table.  She recognizes Jesus had come initially for the nation of Israel and accepts her position as a Gentile, and yet still begs Him to heal her daughter. 

Jesus has been testing her, inviting her into a deeper engagement with Him, and she goes there with Him.  He recognizes her faith and commends it, and He heals her daughter.  As always, Jesus is far more concerned about the heart than He is about surface characteristics. 

It’s a striking exchange and shows just how intentional, attuned, and even curious Jesus is.  First, He appears to ignore her; then He makes it clear she isn’t in His target audience; and finally He reminds her of how Jewish society viewed her (not very favorably), all in a gentle process of uncovering her heart and the depth of her faith.  And most likely giving His disciples another much-needed lesson in the process.

This type of social interaction requires a heart deliberately bent towards learning about other people.  About wanting to know them, and not just the surface stuff we all talk about at church. We desire to deepen our understanding of the actual condition of other people’s hearts.  And we simply can’t do that if we’re the only ones talking.  

Proverbs is filled with instructions about our speech, one of my favorites is chapter 10:

“When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.”[3]

Mark Twain said, “The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”[4]

And French philosopher Voltaire said, “The secret of being boring is to say everything.”

Many people who are hyper-talkative and thus poor listeners seem to be oblivious to this indicator, and they probably are, maybe willfully so.

But someone whose heart is growing more and more into the heart of Jesus talks but is also deeply interested in listening, learning, and looking for opportunities to dig deeper with the people around them.

Some writers claim that mature Christians never talk about themselves because they’re so focused on others.  I think that’s a stretch.  Remember, we love others as we love ourselves.  You have something to offer.  Your story, your perspective, and your ideas are worth sharing with others at the right time and in the right context.  Jesus freely and openly shared Himself with certain types of people. He readily engaged in two-way conversation and spoke about His story, His mission, and His heart when appropriate.   

And of course, there’s the flipside of the hyper-talkative, and that’s the verbal recluse.  That’s someone who is so shy, so introverted, and so quiet that there’s little chance to know them, even if we wanted to. 

Again, there is a personality factor here.  Not every quiet person has dark ideas in their heart.  But certainly, someone who is hard to communicate with may well harbor dark ideas about identity, value, purpose, and maybe even love in their heart. 

In the main, we humans tend to be healthiest when we function in moderation.  Typically, if we’re extreme in our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and words, that’s an indication of something wrong in our hearts.

So, is it okay if we’re talkative or quieter? Sure.  But if we’re so talkative that we don’t listen, or if we’re so quiet we struggle to socialize, those are clear signs of broken desires and wounds in our hearts.

What We Say When We Aren’t Thinking (Instinctual Words)

A second way to explore our words as indicators of what’s going on in our hearts is to pay attention to what we say when we don’t have time to prepare. What we say off the cuff, when we’re caught off guard or emotional, or when we just respond to something without thinking about it. 

I’ve mentioned that we tend to be sophisticated liars when it comes to our words. 

In our episode on relationships, we talked about three categories of people: garden-variety sinners, wicked people, and evil people.  Wicked and evil people are so steeped in ideas of darkness that lying is often their default setting.  Our enemy is the father of lies, and there is no truth in him.  He lies as a matter of course. For wicked and evil people (even those in the church), lying is just what they do.  They don’t even think about it. 

But for garden-variety sinners, we most often lie when we have a few seconds or moments to think about what we’re about to say, and we craft our words carefully for our advantage.  

And by the way, thinking about what we’re going to say is also how we might avoid lying.  We may realize our impulse is to lie to protect ourselves, avoid responsibility, or hurt someone, and the Holy Spirit or our conscience prompts us to stop, pause, and consider the outcome of what we’re about to say.  We know we’re about to sin with our words, so we change our words so they reflect the kingdom of light.

This is why it’s fascinating to explore the words we say when we don’t think about it.  We don’t have time to filter or contemplate the outcome of our words, and the heart just lets loose.  We might call these our instinctual words. 

What sort of things do we say off the cuff? 

You may discover that your heart bends towards the Kingdom of Light often.  When someone is hurting, you speak words of grace and compassion without thinking about it, instinctually. 

When someone cuts you off in traffic, your immediate non-thinking response is to ignore their mistake and go about your day. You don’t say any words. Or perhaps you note the fact they cut you off in traffic with some frustration, which you certainly have the right to do, but your words don’t include any colorful descriptions of the other driver, if you know what I mean.  And I think you know what I mean.

When a family member is disrespectful to you, your non-thinking response may point out their error, but in a way that promotes respect.  When you see an injustice, your instinct is to call it out in clear terms while still recognizing that every human being bears the image of God.

Sometimes our instinctive words reveal a heart at rest in the Kingdom of Light. 

But…sometimes our instinctual words uncover some other things about our hearts. 

A sharp word to a spouse.  An instinctual callous word to our children.  Expressing frustration with someone, but in a way that doesn’t honor them. 

We do need to take care here.  I think it’s obvious we live in a time where the culture gets offended by just about everything.  It’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable to speak the truth, joke about ourselves or others, or just chat freely. This is my opinion, but I think we’ve swung the pendulum so far that it’s becoming difficult to have simple conversations with people without someone getting bent out of shape.  That’s because our culture has elevated the self above almost everything else.

So, I’m not talking about appropriate challenging, provocative, or even harsh words.  There’s a proper time and place for that type of speech. Remember, Jesus used some very harsh language and even name-calling when dealing with certain types of people.  You can only imagine how offended people would get with Jesus if He were physically here today. I imagine we’d kill Him again. 

But Jesus’ heart was always oriented towards love.  Ours are not always oriented in that direction.  

If we have the courage, we should take an inventory of the words we say instinctually, the things we say without thinking about them.  And if we have even more courage, we can ask our family members about our instinctual words.  Chances are, we’ve forgotten some of the things we’ve said. And chances are those closest to us haven’t forgotten. 

What We Don’t Say

Lastly, we learn about our hearts and those around us by paying attention to what we don’t say. 

When our boys were growing up, I often shared two important lessons with them. 

The first? The most important decisions you’ll make are the God you serve and the woman you marry. 

The second?  One of the best ways to evaluate yourself and those around us is to observe these three things in this order:

1. How someone behaves. 

2. What they don’t say.

3. What they say.

If we want to determine someone’s character, this is a pretty good way to size them up.  Pay attention to what they do.  Carefully note what they don’t say.  Then listen to their words.  

We live in an age where lying and corruption in the political sphere are so commonplace that we’re surprised when someone speaks the truth. But their character comes out in their behavior, and in what they purposefully don’t talk about. 

We learn a ton about ourselves and those around us by paying attention to what isn’t said. To see how someone doesn’t engage, or how someone avoids a topic or a discussion. To what they volunteer and what they hold back.  This requires paying close attention when we engage with someone and also implies that we aren’t the only ones talking. 

Many people avoid conversations about topics that prick their hearts. 

I’ve had friends throughout my life who have been around for years, and they live entirely above the surface.  They’ll talk about work, sports, theology, church, and maybe even family. But anytime they’re invited to dig under the surface, to talk about desires, ideas, wounds, story, that’s not a place they want to go.  I’m not talking about the first time we meet someone. I’m talking about friends, family members, and supposedly close relationships.  

Again, what the Bible tells us about Jesus’ social interactions shows a man who continually cut out the small talk and went straight down to the heart. Constantly inviting others to engage Him below the surface. He was constantly healing, constantly restoring, constantly challenging, constantly provoking His disciples and His followers to crawl through the legalism, the power structures, the social mores, the religiosity, and the unconscious ideas in the culture of His time, and to meet Him at the depth of who we are. 

God With Us

Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.” Present with us. Around us, with us, and even in us.  Even to the very depths of our hearts, where our deepest fears, anxieties, hurts, and wounds take root.  Most of us live our lives in willful or unconscious ignorance of these desires and ideas that govern us, but that’s exactly where Jesus invites us to meet Him if we’re willing to join Him there.

And sometimes, if we carefully pay attention to how much we say, what we say when we aren’t thinking, and what we intentionally avoid saying, we get a peek at the recesses of our hearts.  But let’s do more than peek.  A person who wants to be spiritually formed into the likeness of Jesus digs into the roots and the soil and allows God and others to do the hard work of true, difficult, often painful, genuine discipleship.  And that is so much more than a simple list of intellectual beliefs we consent to. 

Truth is a person.  Grace is a person.  Mercy is a person.  Redemption is a person.  Love…is a person. 

Candidly, this is just not the ethos of modern Christianity. I’m not sure how many of us have experience with people who embody what Paul calls “the ministry of reconciliation.”  People who are focused and intentional about knowing one another, truly. Who willingly enter into each other’s sufferings and show a deep desire to know another’s story.  Even when that suffering and pain lasts longer than most Christians think it should.  

There’s a profound difference between a friend who quotes some bible verses to you or sends you a nice text every few weeks, compared to a friend who willingly sits with you, who simply gives you the gift of presence week after week, month after month, year after year.

We tend to focus either on doctrine and intellectual beliefs or on spiritual and emotional experiences to keep us going. I’m not invalidating either of those. We do need to have a Christian worldview and sound doctrine.  And we should expect our relationship with Jesus and the church to have moments of profound emotion.  

But we can have the world’s best doctrine and have wonderful, emotional worship experiences…and still not look any more like Jesus than we did a few years ago.  Jesus wants our hearts and all of the muck and dirt and brokenness and woundedness and sin and the bad ideas and confusion and the wonder and the joy and the awe that sit down there. 

He also strikes me as a gentleman.  He is constantly inviting us into our roots and soil, but He typically doesn’t push it. 

Let’s continue our journey together as we invite Jesus and trusted friends into immersive communities of intentional spiritual formation, so we can heal.  But also, so that we learn to love as Jesus loves.

Thanks for listening! If you’re interested in forming or joining one of these immersive communities of formation, what we call “Greenhouses,” just check out the website at soilandroots.org and click on the tab that says, “Start a Greenhouse.”

If you like the podcast, share the podcast!  The Soil and Roots community grows as you spread the word, and thanks for doing that. 

Feel free to reach out to us via email at fish@soilandroots.org, and we’ll see you next time. 

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[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Mt 12:33–37). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

[2] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Jas 3:5–12). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

[3] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Pr 10:19). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

[4] Stormfield Edition of the Writings of Mark Twain [pseud.].: Mark Twain’s speeches (ed. 1929)