Lord, Help Me Not To...Намуна

DAY 4
LORD, HELP ME NOT TO BE SARCASTIC!

Before you get mad at me for this one, hear me out! I love a good joke. I even love dry humor. When I say, “help me not to be sarcastic,” I’m not condemning any of you who identify as being a sarcastic person. What I’m referring to is the type of sarcasm that is masking negative emotions like resentment. It’s the kind of sarcasm that actually hurts people’s feelings while brushing off insults as “only a joke.”

Let me explain.

I’ve had conversations before where someone said something sarcastic and a couple of moments later I thought to myself, “Ouch. That kind of hurt. What do they mean by that?” Minutes go by, and then there’s another jab here and another little jab there. You just kind of smile because what else do you do. AND THEN…. Jab! Jab! AGAIN!

I call that passive aggressive. To me, the worst kind of aggression is passive aggressiveness. I rather you be fully aggressive or fully passive. Either go for it, and be blunt with me, or be passive and just ignore me for the rest of my life. Some of us can be so quick with the words that come out of our mouth. We know how to jab, punch, and kick someone with our words in less than 20 seconds. Sometimes less than 10!

The truth is there is life and death in the power of the tongue. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be known for the positive things I’ve said to someone than the negative ones.

If you find yourself surrounded by people who get offended by what you say, maybe it’s time to take a look at how you’re saying things.

Colossians 4:6 encourages us to let our speech be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that we may know how to respond to answer each person. Rather than be quick with our words, maybe it’s time to be slow to speak.

Today, I want to encourage you to replace sarcasm with being slow to speak.