Day 3868 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 12:36 NIV

Empty

It’s a word that all but instantly invokes these many ideas of barrenness, a lack of something, a veritable void in which is found so little of anything that the only thing there to find is nothing. But what then is nothing? For if nothing is but a lack of something as has been lost in a void somehow, well then both what was the something that is now lost and just how big is the void we’d need to plumb or cross in order to find what the lost something was? Indeed, how can we find what isn’t?

Moreover, how can we fix what maybe never was?

This has anymore become in me one of those realities so very terrifying that I know not what to think, say, do in order to either do anything about it or that because I don’t know how to undo what I’ve done to have found myself here so under this sun that the Son sometimes still doesn’t shine as bright as the beliefs I have in the things I have, the more I want, the words I say, and all those I only now wish I hadn’t.

You have any of those words? The ones that seem to sort of slip through the mind’s quality control and manage to just kind of flow into yet another oh no? I’ve had a lot of those. Both words I wish I’d have never said, even some I wish I’d never thought thanks to their all becoming those oh no’s that have so often defined that void in life in which we basically just dump all of whatever we happen to find that we happen to feel unto or onto those near enough to hear enough to learn enough to know enough about who we are.

Which isn’t enough.

Just yesterday I got to share another one of these posts and for all intents and purposes it seemed something a little different than most of the others, all 3866 of its sisters and brothers. 3867 after today’s is done. But what made it so different, at least in feel, is that it both began and was sealed with what stands as an impossible challenge. An undertaking we truly cannot undertake. A request so radical that there’s simply no tactical way to approach it.

Because, well, how do we fix it?

The “it” in this case is the failing heart from which comes every word we speak as has been stored in the form of thoughts and intents, attitudes and consents. And indeed, all of us have hearts that have themselves grown to read very much the proverbial playbook for both how not to live a life, at least in regard to all that shouldn’t be said of a life, and too all that shouldn’t be said in a life, but also of the very emptiness that thus defines that which comes out from it through lips that are only there to reflect what’s inside.

But this is quite where we find this here problem to reside. It’s in the defining of our words, or at least some of them, as empty. For it would seem that this would mean that, seeing as how the mouth speaks that with which the heart is full, our words being considered empty would then speak to what is then an emptiness inside. But then if our hearts are empty inside, as defined by the empty words which are poured from them, well then what’s in them?

For if the mouth reflects what the heart is full of, and yet Jesus here warns that we’ll all give account for every empty word we speak, well then this would mean that our hearts are as empty as our words so often seem.

A problem which is then only further compounded thanks to our clearly having this view that says all we say and do is of such amazing importance that ain’t none of it could be considered empty.

And thus we find the war we wage in which it’s our will against His as is then defined right down to even the words we say from hearts that house the thoughts that beg we do. And that then over and against all the better that He’s called us to in what was His share of our emptying ourselves of life so as to go where we’d gone to find who we’d become in order to from there lead us back to what we’d all but given away in every way we possibly could.

Which is a collective of things we like to refer to as life.

And we’ve given it away in what’s to be determined, either now or later, as a true emptying thereof. For that is literally the only way this idea of filling and emptying can work as we’ve each but so much room inside our hearts, minds, lives with which to fill what matters most. And so this seems to say that for us to have found all these empty words to say would only mean that we’ve had to choose the emptiness of what are then empty hearts that are the “home base” for these then baseless words.

But for our hearts to have become as empty as the words we at least sometimes say, this would mean that something had been allowed to get gone away as God does not create nothing. Nobody creates nothing. Nothing isn’t a thing and so then nothing can’t even exist. There can never be something that is nothing. Nothing cannot be something.

And yet so often our words really do seem to seek only to prove quite the contrary.

For yes, many of our words are empty. They are so often nothing thanks to their all but often accomplishing the same. But then saying that our words are empty seems to lead flawlessly into the asking of what. What are our words missing? In what way are the empty? What could they have that they apparently do not have? What should they say that is either not being said or even potentially being spoken against?

What is empty in regard to what we say that is only ever said because we apparently feel the need to say it?

Well, life for starters!

And indeed, if we could just slow down and shut up long enough we could in fact hear that so much is being said around here without anything being said at all. But again, how is that possible? How can we say something that says nothing? How can that happen? How on earth are these “empty words” possible? After all, we hear them and they often sound as if they have meaning, passion, purpose then. And so what then are they missing?

Again, life.

For we’re told in Proverbs 18:21 that life and death are in the power of the tongue and too that those who love it eat too of its fruit. The eating refers simply to the common understanding of such consumption as is seen at every dining room table, fast food drive thru and all you shouldn’t eat food buffet. That part is easy to understand in that those who love to listen to what the tongue says will then be found as those defined as having eaten of its fruit.

That part’s easy.

And indeed, the first half is too, just not quite so easy for us to work through. Why? Because how can the tongue kill? I mean, sure, it can hurt. It can wound. It can wield what are words that seek to bruise, betray, start a battle or end a friendship. Words are indeed quite powerful little tools, building everything from memories of someone saying “I do” to those far less enjoyable scars carved in being called a loser or freak.

But in this do we not then see the potential for our words to be deemed empty? And that because we can too see in this example the ability for the tongue to bring life or cause death?

Granted, they may not be life and death as are expected physically. For no, our words are not like God’s in that they cannot speak life into existence and nor then can they remove a life from existence. We just aren’t that special. And yet that right there seems to all but define the issue. It’s that we do like to think we’re special. We do like to think we matter. We do enjoy assuming that our every single word means something.

And granted, it does.

Question is what.

What do our words mean? What do our words bring? Do our words help another believe? Do they rather more often only deceive? Does what we say build? Does it betray? Is there anything in all that we say that offers life, or at least it bettered or them bettered by it being thus heard by those who do? Or are our words empty of such a proof?

Indeed, what do our words prove?

Again, we’re told in Proverbs that it basically boils down to either life or death. And yes, I can think of other verses and passages which spring to mind in regard to this idea. Ephesians 4:29 right at the top of the list. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

And yet even there too we find what reads another word that just feels entirely too close to empty for us to overlook. For that verse in Ephesians warns us against using “unwholesome talk”. Unwholesome.

Ok. What then is “unwholesome”?

Well, break it down. Whole is something that is full, complete, entire and thus not missing anything. Wholesome then refers to something that is then “conducive to or suggestive of good health and physical well-being”, it’s something that is so full and complete that it has nothing missing but is rather able to offer completely the needs needed by another. And yet un is a prefix that’s attached to a word that then causes it to mean that which is antithetical or in opposition of the word onto which it is attached, sort of the underside of the coin that we either don’t look at or simply don’t want to look at.

And so this “unwholesome talk” is indeed the very same as “empty words.” Because both are then missing something. Because for something to be un-wholesome means that it’s not wholesome, which means that it’s lacking in completeness or fullness and thus isn’t what would elsewise be considered as being entire. And empty means the very same thing.

Something is missing.

And yet we know of death as the lack of life. Death is missing life. Death is empty of life. But the tongue only holds the power of life and death unto those, who are all of us, who enjoy it enough to continue eating the fruit thereof. And so then this must mean then that our words then can only be empty when they speak death. But again, how can this be when we see and hear so many people talking all the time and nobody ever really drops dead because of what they said?

It’s in the seed.

For you see, everything we say is a seed that’s being planted for a thought we hope to grow in those we talk to. For everything we say is apparently of enough meaning and worth to us that we can’t bear to keep it all to ourselves anymore. That’s why we say it. We speak because we want heard what we have to say. And indeed, these days it has become as if people literally have to say all they have to say. Like they literally can’t tolerate keeping it to themselves.

But does it help?

That’s the bottom line that I believe Christ is aiming us toward here in Matthew. Does it help? Do the words we say lead others closer to life or only further away? And again, this seems something plausibly hard for us to understand due to our modern society having so lost control of the tongue and thus any willingness to weigh our words before wielding the same. Indeed, we all just exist as if this endless purge of whatever we want to say. Don’t really seem to care what it is even, just want to be heard is all.

But friends, that isn’t all. There is far more to language than just soothing this selfish arrogance that needs this constant agreement that we’re here and that we matter as is accomplished best, apparently, by never shutting up. Indeed, I’d venture to say that some folks around here might well feel as if they were going to literally die if they had to be quiet for five minutes.

We can’t do it.

We’ve instead become so accustomed to the noise, and mostly interested in only our always adding to it, that we don’t stop to consider what it is that we’re adding to it.

And while this may work well enough for now, this living as if words are something best offered in quantity whilst never concerned as to their quality, the issue is that God’s made clear right here that every empty word we say will be something we have to give an answer for some day. And in fact this day is referred to as that of judgment. Now there’s a word we both love and hate! Because we love to accuse others of being judgmental all while hating to judge even ourselves.

And this is what has allowed the tongue to chart the course to hell that literally the entire world is on.

All because we all continue to speak mostly only death to every possible better than everyone around us can always become.

That’s the difference between wholesome talk and empty words. Wholesome talk seeks to make whole those who hear it. Empty words only empty those who hear them of their resolve to rise above them. And both come from the same place in what are then vastly different states. For either are hearts are full of life and thus adamant to spend the rest of ours trying to help others fill theirs too (both hearts and lives and hearts with life) or we’re instead carrying around hearts filled with death and are then only able to speak what only prevents those around us from improving.

Either way, we’re either living or losing, and which is determined best by the words we say.

We are either speaking life or bringing death as those are the only two options spoken of as being power of the tongue.

So which way are you going? Which one are you bringing? What all will you have to answer for as is to be determined by all you choose to say now? Because we will all give an account for every empty word we speak. And so then what this must mean is that we will answer for every word we utter that doesn’t bring improvement or edification or some measure of holy hope to those who happen to hear it.

Probably not then something we should take quite so lightly as to continue living so loosely when it comes to the lips that form the air that flows over the tongue carrying the “thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” That little snippet coming from Hebrews 4:12 which speaks of how the Word of God is alive and active and so perpetually sharp as it continues on this mission to continue dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow, right down to judging the “thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Yes, our hearts will be judged for whatever it is that by then we’ve allowed them to become.

How will that judgement go?

And if we don’t think we can possibly know, what do your words have to say?

Indeed, what do our words have to say about what we believe? Are they speaking life as is given unto all from a cross upon which Christ said the little that was needed when He whispered that “It is finished”? Or are they only continuing to flow from what is a heart that’s so empty of that hope that all we have to say is that no, there’s more to worry about, more to focus on, more here in this place that means enough to us that we’ve not the time nor inclination to spend our lives speaking of what this world doesn’t want to hear?

Friends, what we need to understand is that whatever something is only seeks always the same. What I mean is this: A tree never worries about becoming a rock. A bird doesn’t waste its time wishing it was a dog. Water knows that it will never be fire. Death knows that it knows nothing of life, and thus life cares to never know anything of death as no house can stand when divided against itself like that.

Rather life seeks to go on being lived. And that which is dead will by all means stay that way.

And thus we find that what we say says all we need to know about all we have inside.

And so, are we speaking life in what are then words impossible to be considered empty seeing as how they’re sowing the seeds of hope and growth and peace and purpose as all won within the promise of Christ Jesus? Or are we only speaking words that carry no such worth?

Everything we say says something to those who hear it. But whether or not it helps them, encourages them, edifies them and aims them closer to Jesus is what will define the difference between empty words and the life they could have held.

Friends, we walk a world aimed square at hell and we can literally see this and hear this every single day inside all the ways we walk and talk and all we thus say and do as we do. Is there anything in all we say that carries with it the weight of begging people to turn back toward Heaven? Or our words mostly only empty of such a purpose?

Just know what however we answer that so too determines the very state of our own heart and soul. For if we’re speaking mostly only empty words then it’s both safe and yet sad to say that we must thus be empty inside too. And considering everything Jesus went through to fill us up with more than enough life to share, I just don’t see how He would ever be okay with our continuing along that way of speaking emptiness to those who hear us.

Not when He literally gave His life in order for us to have something so important, something so special to say.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold