If people are wrongly offended by the words of Jesus Christ, this we cannot remedy, but if they are rightly offended by the way we use our words, then this is something you and I can do something about.

Thinking of old wounds from the past, if a wound isn’t cleansed, the flesh gets infected and may begin to rot, contaminating the flesh of those who come into contact with it.  Apply this to words, and it’s easy to see how the wounds we’ve received in the past (spiritual, or emotional) can affect our words and those who come into contact with them.

This is especially true for the Christian writer—and make no mistake, we’re all writers in some sense of the word, whether we consider ourselves writers or not.   Paul was aware of this when he wrote “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are Christ’s letter, delivered by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God — not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts,” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3 CSB).

Paul’s words give me pause as a Christian.  Am I contaminating the ink in my ‘spiritual well’ while attempting to deliver Christ’s letter?   Is there an inkling of imbalance in my words, some angst that shouldn’t be there, or some bias against a phantom antagonist from the past?  Have my words become about me settling a score, touting my opinion, or boosting myself instead of the gospel of grace?  If so, then chances are it’s going to have an ill effect on somebody.

Many a time I’ve written something, thinking it was just fine when a ‘pebble in my shoe’ was telling me something was off.  Sure enough, I’d return a day or two later and spot a self-serving word or phrase glaring at me from the monitor. Why hadn’t I spotted it in the beginning? Recently the nagging pebble urged me to return to an article I’d written and chop two whole paragraphs from it, which I did — cleaning out the ‘wounded me’ and leaving the pure meat of the gospel. 

Isn’t God the best writing instructor of all?

Copyright 2022. Toni Babcock is author of Reflections from the Heart in Light of the Gospel of Jesus, and The Stone Writer, Christian Fiction for Young Readers and Teens. Many of her devotionals have been featured on www.faithwriters.com.