Speak Less. Thursday, July 3. 2014.

Being in the Verizon store for hours gives way to lots of people watching.

There was an older couple there learning how to use their brand new iPhone.

The wife was the caretaker.

The husband was a Navy Veteran.

In a wheelchair.

Who had undergone a tracheotomy.

Anything that this man wished to say took work.

He couldn’t simply just speak like the rest of us.

He would need to close the opening in his neck

in order to create something that barely qualified as words.

Multiple times while I was there,

I noticed that he would lift his hand as if to begin the process of saying something,

but then he would just drop his hand,

almost as if he were thinking,

‘Forget it, it’s not important anyways’.

With that being said,

he did not appear to be sad or depressed.

He and his wife seemed very happy.

Their love for each other was abounding,

despite the fact that they did not communicate much verbally.

Their example proved something.

Sometimes we don’t always have to have the last word.

Sometimes more words is not the route to go.

Sometimes less is actually more.

Maybe there is something to the saying,

actions speak louder than words.

Maybe there is a reason we hear more about Jesus doing rather than

Jesus saying.

The world tells us to never shut up.

We must be constantly logged into social media.

Letting someone else have the last word means you’re a wimp.

And we are seen as rude or shy or depressed if we aren’t the life of the party.

Though it may seem insignificant,

it is just another area where the world clashes with the Savior of the world.

What if we just shut up and listen?

What is God saying to us?

What if we just shut up and did?

Does the social media world really need to know you volunteered at the homeless shelter or that you cracked open your Bible this morning?

Guilty.

Guilty of it all.

Not accusatory.

Guilty.

St. Francis of Assisi made this point,

‘Preach the Gospel and if necessary, use words’.

If I had sum up the Gospel in one word, it would be

Love.

How can we speak love through our actions?

How can we humble ourselves to love another?

How can we preach the Gospel without words?

‘If I speak in human and angelic tongues but I do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.’

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

‘But if all that we do is absent of Jesus then this so called love is completely in vain.’

Mercy Me

Can we choose what is important to say?

And leave out the not so important?

And focus on loving through action?

Preaching through action?

What if we shut up and did today?