Author: Paul Nordman

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The Reckless Arrows in the Quiver

In his book, Above the Line, former Ohio State University football coach Urban Meyer shared leadership insights that helped guide the team — both on and off the field — through their 2014 national championship season. He recalled an incident in which a player learned his girlfriend was cheating on him. “They had an extremely heated argument . . . He could tell that he was on the brink of losing control . . . He was close to doing something terrible that could change the course of his life, and it was at that exact point that he pressed pause and called his position coach . . . The coach talked to him . . . and helped him step back from the torrent of emotions and get his mind right.”1

“Press pause,” think of it as a disciplined response — and a form of self-leadership — that helps one avoid regrettable reactions and choose reasonable responses instead. The young man in this scenario teetered precariously on the brink of physical violence, but the temptation to rash speech brings us to “press pause” crisis points, as well, and indeed more often. King Solomon observed, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”2 We can also think of “press pause” as the wisdom to stop, think, and manage our emotions, instead of letting them master us. In so doing, we will find that the circumstances which might have led to internal suffering through verbal sniping can lead us in the way of blessing, instead. Again, from Solomon: “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”3 Isn’t this ultimately how we want to live our lives — as meaningful vessels for good?

Then how do we step back and get our mind right? First, consider Jesus’ liberating love for you. You are completely and forever forgiven and redeemed through His proactive love. Then when the “torrent of emotions” begins to swell up against another, look safely inside. For Jesus teaches us, “What you say flows from what is in your heart.”4 When we press pause and honestly examine our own fleshy motivations — retaliation and belittlement, for instance — those we might otherwise disparage emerge now as companions in need of grace, and rash words of harm can give way to wise words of healing.

“I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle . . . ”5 — King David

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”6 In Christ I pray. Amen.

1 Urban Meyer. Above the Line: Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season. (Penguin Press, 2015), 49-50. (Emphasis added.)
2 Proverbs 10:19 ESV
3 Proverbs 12:18 ESV
4 Luke 6:45 NLT
5 Psalm 39:1 ESV
6 Psalm 139:23-24 ESV

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The Deadliest Arrow in the Quiver

A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club, or a sword, or a sharp arrow. — Proverbs 25:18 ESV

In last week’s post, we began to expose the untamed tongue with an intent to bring it to heel. For we have all brandished piercing words as slashing swords, even against those we would sacrificially protect. There are, as well, the sharp utterances of others, arrows piercing our own hearts despite the sentries we stationed around them. Some words target deception, and some corruption; there are others. But today let’s look at the deadliest arrow in the quiver, the one aimed at reputation.

The reformer Martin Luther observed the logic in which God’s commandment not to steal naturally flows into His next commandment —not to “bear false witness against your neighbor.”1 Wrote the reformer, “God wishes the reputation, good name, and upright character of our neighbor to be taken away or diminished as little as his money and possessions, that every one may stand in his integrity. . .”2 In “Othello,” William Shakespeare parallels Luther’s conviction:

“He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.”3

We are our brother’s keeper, so how do we refrain from bending the bow toward his reputation? I offer no formula, just thoughts for consideration.

Pause first. “Be . . . slow to speak and slow to become angry.”4
Consider the damage. “The tongue has the power of life and death.”5 How will you use yours?
Empathize. Remember when someone harmed your reputation. What was the fallout? How did you feel?
Examine the heart. Do you really want to deprive for a lifetime the dignity and reputation of another?
Remember. “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.”6

Then from where comes the power to control the tongue? It comes from within — the discarding of the old self and the donning of the new. “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”7 We live in Christ, and His Spirit lives in us. We need not be controlled by our flesh anymore. We have choices. Speak truth in love.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” — James 3:9-10 NIV

Father, “Hide me from [those who] sharpen their tongues like swords and aim cruel words like deadly arrows,”8 and disincline my own heart from doing the same. In Christ I pray. Amen.

1 Exodus 20:16 ESV
2 Luther, Martin. “The Large Catechism.”
3 Shakespeare, William. “Othello,” in The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Stanly Wells and Gary Taylor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Act 3, Scene 3, lines 164-166.
4 James 1:19 NIV
5 Proverbs 18:21 NIV
6 Proverbs 19:9 ESV
7 Colossians 3:9-10 ESV
8 Psalm 64:2-3 ESV

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My Way Gives Way to His Way

In his hit song, “My Way,” Frank Sinatra crooned, “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.”1 Personally, I cannot relate. If anything, I’ve had more regrets than I care to remember, many of them anchored in my actions and probably even more wielded through my words. Perhaps this is your experience, as well. Now, it would be easy to excoriate ourselves, as if by kicking our shins hard enough and often enough we’d either alter our sin nature or atone for it. But shin-kicking accomplishes neither. It is as fruitless as it is misguided. (And it looks silly.) So, in today’s post, let’s begin to examine our words, or “the tongue.”

Never one to hold back, the plainspoken apostle James wrote, “the tongue . . . is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”2 Like the California wildfires of this past month — widespread, uncontrolled, and devastating —such are our words in the hands of the flesh, our sin nature. James adds a note of finality: “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”3 Then we do well to understand and accept the fact that our untamable tongue exposes our reprobate nature. Such understanding is good, for it turns us from fearful denial and toward liberating confession; it redirects us from self-flagellation and to reliance on the atonement of Christ.

Then what do we as believers do? How do we match our talk with our walk? I think we begin by acclimating ourselves with what is true. First, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”4 Christ lives in us, we live in Him, and we are new. It follows that “when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin”5 — we, our tongues included, now have choices. Then not only are we empowered to follow the Spirit’s lead, God is actually at work in us to give us the desire and the power to do what pleases him.6 Ours is to give ourselves over to Him in every way and to follow His lead. For only in Christ does “my way” give way to His way.

“Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.” — 1 Peter 3:10-11 ESV

Father, fill us with Your Spirit, so that, hearing His voice, we would use our voice to build up others and glorify You. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Sinatra, Frank. “My Way.” On Sinatra at the Sands, recorded December 30, 1968, Reprise Records, 1969.
2 James 3:6 NIV
3 James 3:8 NIV
4 2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV
5 Romans 6:7 NLT
6 Philippians 2:13 NLT