We Christians utilize a few popular sayings that I think say something other than we intend to say.  I think I understand the intention behind most of these, I also see a lack of preciseness in our language.  All too often, we sacrifice clarity on the altar of clever. 

I like to call this micro-communication. We live in a culture that has grown to communicate in short, reaction-inducing statements.  Sound bites pepper our speech, memes dot our social media pages, emojis adorn our emails and texts. 

Unfortunately, micro-communication has made its way into our Christian-speak.  Today, I want to highlight a couple of common examples and show how they fall short.  Then I want to encourage us in ways that we can exalt God more in our communications.  

“You’ve just got to have faith.”

On the surface, this is a great exhortation, isn’t it?  I mean, really, we want people to believe.  The problem lies in the focus of said “faith.”  Is it enough to believe in oneself?  Will life situations turn out the way we want them if we just believe hard enough that they will?  Or is it OK to believe in anything or anybody just so you believe in something?

To be fair, I believe that most Christians use the phrase it encourage others to trust God.  But why not say that?  Why not use two precise words – trust God – instead of six fuzzy words?  It’s possible we have let our culture condition us to leave God-talk out of our conversations.

When we encourage others to “trust God” we point people to Him and away from themselves and their circumstances.  And in encouraging them to trust Him, we take the burden of joy off of circumstances.  For when we trust an all-knowing, good, Sovereign God, we can trust even when circumstances are opposite our desires. (Romans 8:28).

So instead of the pep talk “you’ve just gotta have faith,” let’s encourage people to specifically have faith in God.  

“I believe in the power of prayer.”

OK, so now some of you think I am a heretic who doesn’t believe in praying.  That’s not what I am talking about.  But here is a hot take:  the power is not in prayer.  The power is in the ONE to whom we are praying.

For instance, is there power in prayer offered to Allah?  Or any of the myriad of Hindu deities? What about someone who prays to a tree?  Will that tree be able to do anything for them.

Let me hasten to say that God has called us to pray.  Pray without ceasing.  Pray fervently. But we can point others to God by saying, “I believe in the power of God, and He answers prayer.”  Sometimes God does not answer in the way we ask. His answers are always better than our ask.  

Saying we believe in the power of prayer is a subtle way of saying that answers come in response to our effort.  Instead, we can point people to the ONE who is more than able to do beyond all we ask or imagine.  (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Going Forward

So there are a couple of examples of the way we micro-communicate in our Christian-speak.  Here are some suggestions for helping us bring more clarity to our conversations with others.

1.  Be on the look-out for micro-communication. Listen to the catch phrases that people use in conversation.  Examine your social media timelines.  Read emails and texts with open eyes.  Learning to identify micro-communication is the first step to sharpening our own communication.

2.  Filter your own communications.  Think before you speak.  Are there ways you can say what you want to say in a way that more precisely points to Christ?  Read your posts, emails, and texts a couple of times before sending.  Will what you send point people toward Jesus and encourage them to believe Him more faithfully?

3.  Be intentional with your communication.  Seek ways to state what you want to state in more gospel-centered language.  Avoid cliches and catchphrases.  Use precise, encouraging language that intentionally magnifies Christ.

If micro-communication chooses clever over clarity, then macro-communication expresses Christ over cliche.  

And before my next post, I will work on using fewer hyphenated words.  :). 

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. – Proverbs 25:11
(And I might add a word fitly typed and/or posted)

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