words to live {and yes, even drive} by
Afternoon, and noting the time, we drop the things in our hands, gathering and folding into the car. We turn corners and lift our hands, flat shields against the blinding sun, mutually complaining about the sight-stealing while we give thanks for the warmth, huddling into our seats. You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live, God says (Exodus 33:20). And so creation testifies, because I can hardly drive under this brilliant shining.
But another turn, two, and I gasp at the clouds, the sweep and curl of them, the way they twine with long fingers of sunlight. Look, I say, an awe-wrapped whisper to my girls. Zoe has her nose in a book–something thick and absorbing, and Riley sits beside me, looking out the window at the passing traffic. Since birth, Riley has worn the quiet over her shoulders, hooding her head, and as she gets older, I notice a growing richness to its quality, a pure and peaceful contemplation. “Yes, I see,” she says, nodding. “God has done a great job with the sky.”
It makes me smile, the easy way she says this, the practical delivery.
“Indeed, He has. A great job indeed,” I agree, slowing suddenly behind a reluctant driver just as we approach the freeway. I sigh, straining to gather information from behind. Who is this, and why are they driving so slowly? I can’t see. But as we ease our way onto the ramp, he or she pumps the breaks. The taillights blink: long long short.
“Oh please,” I mutter to whoever ahead of me, looking in my rearview mirror for the poor soul who will soon eat my bumper. “You’ll get us all killed, you crazy person. If you can’t get on at full speed, please don’t get on.”
And then the Spirit reaches into me, like a hand gripping. Don’t dishonor another soul with your words. It’s effortless, the way we slide in and out of praise. We all stumble in many ways, James writes. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check….but no human being can tame the tongue….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: 2, 8-10). No human being can tame the tongue. This isn’t resolvable; it must be metamorphoo, completely transformed, and that’s the work of God.
Riley sits forward a little in her seat, and without looking at her, I know the lines of her forehead, the shape of concern and confusion rumpling her features. She already lives this lesson, and often God uses her heart like a flame for my own. “Mom, why is that car going so slow?” She lifts her hand, pointing. I feel her squinting into the sunlight. Her question is genuine, not a point to be made. It’s a tiny thing, but I have brought it to her attention. I have made it important. She waits on my answer, thinking I know.
But the truth is, I don’t. I don’t know why. I could speculate a dozen different reasons, some compassionate, some judgmental, depending on the direction of my heart-wind. The driver could be older, slower to react, trying to stay safe. Or, maybe she’s someone grieving who should not be driving at all, vision blurred by tears. He could once have suffered a terrible accident while entering traffic. He could be gripped by fear. Or, perhaps he or she argues with a passenger, living in conflict. Or maybe, life has just exploded into a distracting level of too much, as it does for me so often. Riley’s question forces me to remember that someone drives, someone with reason, a life, and vulnerabilities as wide as my own.
Oh, come on…I breathe, but it’s only a mild argument. Even here?
Lately, it’s this He’s refining in me, the growth He’s Spirit-stretching: Don’t dishonor another soul with your words. This conversation we’ve been having has lasted years, and bit by bit He captures and reshapes more of me, reaching. I’ve always loved this about God, that the details matter—the smallest spaces, the lightest moments; that it isn’t just the public me He wants but the private shadows, the things I say and feel and think in my car, with my family, behind closed doors. Don’t dishonor another soul with your words, He says. Not a driver you don’t know. Not a person who has wronged you. Not a family member, not a friend, not an aquaintance. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand…(Jude 1:9,10). Slander. In this particular passage, it’s two words: blasphemia krisis, slander—speech injurious to another’s good name—and condemnation. We slander and condemn what we don’t understand, what we don’t know about one another but think maybe we do. But if the archangel wouldn’t even venture to slander the devil, who am I to take it lightly to slander another person, even privately, even in my thoughts?
Let your light shine before others that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven, He says (Matthew 5:16). Let the light of me be blinding—warm rays like fingers twining with clouds. Be the glimpse of Glory, the wisp of a view of my back passing by. Let your children see what I do with you.
My children. I look sideways at Riley, still staring ahead with concern. My children, like God-charged sentinels, innocently test my tone as their own, tasting the words, practicing my outraged expressions. They absorb my disdain, my criticisms, like hunks of bread clutched in the fingers, quickly rot-dipped and gobbled down. It isn’t the right meal for them, and the regurgitation repulses me.
“You know, I don’t know,” I say to Riley, slowly. “I don’t know why. Maybe they’re just having a slow day. You know…God’s done a great job with whoever that is too.”
On her face, the clouds break, and she shines, sitting back. “Yes, indeed. Indeed He has, Mom,” she says, and her voice lifts and falls into joy at the thought.
God calls His words nourishing, life-giving, productive. And as I grow resplendent with Him (2 Cor. 3:18), so also should the overflow of my heart (Luke 6:45) build and nourish and strengthen instead of tear down. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it (Isaiah 55: 10,11). …For man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3).
Don’t dishonor another soul with your words, He whispers, gently sculpting, muddying His fingers again with the heart of me. And to this, He adds a shade of wonder: What if I allow Him to make me uncompromising on this, bold enough to admit out loud that I just don’t want to disappoint Him with what I say? Because I say so many empty things, and for all of these there will be but one account (Matthew 12:36): I am empty without you, and only your grace is sufficient for me.
