I have never
eaten an awesome meal. I’ve never driven an awesome car or taken an awesome
vacation. I haven’t danced to an awesome song or streamed an awesome video. I
do, however, know an awesome God.
My
history with the word awesome goes back to my childhood, when
my father –an amateur linguist and professional theologian – gently corrected
my early attempts to apply that word (lit. “inspiring fright”)
indiscriminately. In our family, we reserved the adjective for the One whose
name is great and awesome (Ps. 99:3).
My dad’s point was not that awesome itself
was some sacred incantation only for the divine (the lover in Song of Solomon,
for example, ascribes awesomeness to his bride). He simply wanted me to
acknowledge with my words that, in both character and magnitude, God is
different from deep-dish pizza.” [Megan Hill, Christianity Today online, October 2014]
Such
words give me pause to reconsider my use of words; not just in my preaching but
in all my conversations – spoken and written.
I confess that I am prone to be lazy in my use of language. As the author quoted earlier goes on to say:
We
live in a culture of inflated language. Our text messages and e-mails explode
with exclamation points and smiley faces… Our everyday language swells in an
era where immediate eclipses thoughtful, where the objective meaning of words is
questionable, and where affirmation is prized. … And our social media statuses
daily attract hundreds of thumbs-ups. As they sing in The Lego Movie:
“Everything is awesome.”
But if everything is awesome,
nothing is.
How
often do we use words we don’t really mean?
Do we attach meanings to words for the sake of convenience rather than
clarity and preciseness? Scripture speaks often about our use of words. For
instance:
Proverbs 25:11 The right word at the right time is like
precious gold set in silver.
Our
Lord even says that there are consequences associated with our words:
Matthew 12:36 And I tell you this, you must give an
account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.
Even
those words of mine which do not harm another person can very easily be the
wrong words. Indeed, I may not have harmed them, but did I build them up? Were my words an encouragement to them? Further,
by failing to carefully choose my words I can easily give an impression of
something that is not entirely accurate; I can lead someone to believe something
of me (or another) that is unrepresentative of who I am or what I think or
feel. I have come to realize that in
this culture of emoticons, exclamation points and overworked clichés, until I
have chosen the correct and accurate words for the situation at hand, it may
well be best for me to say nothing at all.
To quote Megan Hill again: “If you don’t know our God, you might think a
movie is awesome, but if you meet Him, you’ll understand what awesome truly is.
Careful language testifies to the world as it reflects our truth-telling God.”
