When Words Aren't Enough

There are days when sometimes I feel like all I ever do is talk. Words and phrases flow from my lips without any thought behind them. My mouth becomes a babbling brook of thoughtless prose. It's like I'll be giving my sister a compliment on the super cute sweater she just bought from Old Navy, and in my mind all I can hear is "I can wear that to dinner next Friday! It's perfect; not too casual, not too dressy..." An empty sentence of compliance is all I have to offer, because of my own selfish gain. It happens to the best of us. We just blurt out whatever appealing words are at the tips of our tongues, regardless of meaning. It's the same way in our relationship with God. We wake up everyday, given this new gift of life and we go about our business, maybe we'll say a quick prayer as we drive to work, but its never more than a few words of "thanks." What good are these words without thought or action behind them! Or we got to church every Sunday, sit front row, and listen to Scott preach the beautiful Word, and we nod our heads when a word like "grace" or "mercy" or "faith" pops into the sermon. I don't think all of us really grasp that "grace" and "mercy" and "thanks" and "faith" aren't nouns. They're verbs. Verb. A word that represents an action or a state of being. As Christians, sometimes we fall into this trap where we get caught up in the words we feel we have to say to sound, well for lack of a better term, "Christian." Our prayers become more mumbo jumbo than meaningful. We forget that what it means to BE grace, to BE mercy, to BE thanks, to BE faith. We fall the shortest when it comes to BEING faith. Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." For me, that's an awesome definition of faith, but that's just it. Its only a definition. With this faith that we have in our unseen Savior we have to take it and act upon it. In Galatians, we are reminded of the freedom we have been given through Christ. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, so that our chains may be broken, setting us free from our own, selfish undying ways. Paul writes in Galatians 5: 5-6 "But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope...the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." James asks us what good is our faith without any deeds? We've all heard the proverbial cliche "if you're going to talk the talk, you're going to have to walk the walk." But its true. No longer can we just sit around, acting Casual Christian. We have to get out of our front row seats and become part of the show. We have to dig deeper, sing louder, work harder, get dirtier, all in action for the glory of God. Because sooner or later, we all come to realize that words are never enough.




I wrote this just about a year ago. It rings more true today, than ever.