The Words We Don't Say

Words are powerful. I don’t think anyone would deny that. We can all remember a time when someone’s words tore us down, and we can hopefully remember a time when someone’s words built us up. It’s been said that actions speak louder than words and words are cheap, but that being said, words create most of the problems we face with other people. Things can get so messed up so quickly just because someone misunderstood what you were saying. We need to think about what we say when communicating with others, and that includes the words and the tone you use when talking to others. I’m not here to talk about being careful with what you say, though. I want to talk about the words you don’t say.

At first this might seem like a small topic. There can’t be much to say about something that never happened, can there? It’s like talking about a snowstorm that never hit, or the trip to the grocery store when your car didn’t break down. Not much there on the surface, yet I would argue that the words you don’t say are at least as important as the ones you do.

The first aspect of this topic is the words you don’t say because you shouldn’t. Whenever you are in an argument and you “hold your tongue,” that’s good. It takes incredible self-control, but by doing so you don’t inflict the wounds you could. It shows love and respect for the other person, even if you don’t feel that way at the moment. Sometimes we are hurting so much ourselves we just want to make the other person hurt, too, yet when we restrain ourselves that brings glory to God. Ohhh, it’s hard, but it’s what we must do if want to follow God whole-heartedly.

The other aspect is the words you don’t say and you should. Have you ever thought about that? When you could encourage someone but don’t for one reason or the other? You’re too busy, you don’t think about it, etc. The words you don’t say and shouldn’t actually fall into the encouragement category because you don’t harm someone as much as you could. Words you should say and don’t are actually discouraging because you have the chance to build someone up and you don’t. Think a time when you wish someone had said, “Good job! I’m proud of you!” or “Thank you for your effort,” and they didn’t. That hurts almost as much as if they had said something negative. The one nice thing about not hearing it, though, is that we can usually explain it away to make it hurt less. That’s harder to do with actual words.
My conclusion to all of this is to encourage you to think about the words you don’t say. Why don’t you say them? Should you say them? Never underestimate the power of words you say, or the ones you don’t.