Getting Personal: Getting to the Heart of Communication Problems
Chapter Four
Idol Words
Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? . . . They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside
yourselves. (James 4:1–2)
PRETEND with me that it is a weekday morning and I am sitting in my office thinking about my lovely wife. I realize how blessed I am to be married to such a person for so many years. I reflect on the fact that I asked her to marry me when I was seventeen years old! I realize that I didn’t have the maturity then to make such a serious decision and that my marriage today is a testimony to the love and grace of the Lord.
As I sit in my office, I also think about how hard it is for Luella and me to have any time alone with each other. We have four children still living at home: two sons who go to college in the city, a daughter in high school, and a son in elementary school. Needless to say, there isn’t much quiet around our house! We are way beyond the days when we could put the kids to bed and spend time together. Our children are always still up when we decide to go to bed. In fact, my sons often wake me as I am dozing with the newspaper to ask me why I don’t just call it a day. Like my father before me, I instinctively claim that I was not sleeping. But recently, my son responded that he knew I was sleeping because of the drool on the newspaper!
Anyway, as I am thinking about Luella, being thankful to God for her and bemoaning the pressures of family life that keep us apart, I decide to surprise her that night with dinner out at the restaurant of her choice. I am excited about the idea and I just know that she will be too! When my lunch hour comes around, I run to the local mall to buy her favorite perfume as an expression of my love for her.
As the afternoon progresses, I am more and more taken with the prospect of a night out with my wife. I daydream about the evening to come. In my mind I see it this way: I drive up to the house, leap up the stairs, throw open the front door, and find Luella waiting for me. She says, “Paul, you’re finally home! I have been waiting for you. I so look forward to your coming home each afternoon.” (You can see whose fantasy this is!) I respond, “I’ve been thinking all day about how much I love you, and how blessed I am to have you as my wife. And I have a great idea. Let’s go out to eat tonight, just the two of us—you pick the restaurant.” She responds, “Most of the women I know would love to be married to a man like this!” “Oh, I have another surprise,” I say as I pull the perfume out of my pocket. “I bought you your favorite perfume!” “Blessing upon blessing, more than I can contain!” she responds. “I’ll go right upstairs and get ready. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than spend an evening with you.” The afternoon flies by as my mind keeps replaying the upcoming surprise for my wife.
Now pretend with me that the day is actually over and I am on my way home. By this time, I am fully captivated by the idea of a night out with Luella. I am also fully persuaded that she will think the idea is wonderful too. I sing my way home, not remembering the lights I stopped at or the turns I made. I park in front of the house, bound up the stairs, and throw open the door—but no one is there! Still, my enthusiasm is undiminished.
I walk into the dining room when I hear voices coming from the kitchen. They are not happy voices. In the kitchen I find Luella standing between our two older boys, refereeing an argument. In my excitement, I don’t wait for a pause in the action. I just blurt out, “Luella, I’ve got a great idea!” No one even seems to notice that I have entered the room. I blurt out my announcement again and this time Luella responds, “Did you say something?” “Yes,” I say excitedly, “I’ve been thinking about you all day and I have a great idea. Let’s go out to eat tonight, just the two of us. You choose the restaurant and I’ll make a reservation while you’re getting ready to go.”
She looks at me for a moment and responds with a sigh. This is not a positive sign. “Maybe you didn’t understand me,” I say, trying again. “I want to take you out for a special night at your favorite restaurant, just you and me.” Luella sighs again (things are not looking good at all!) and then begins to speak. “Do you know what my day has been like? I feel like I have been the sole peace negotiator in the middle of World War III. I am totally exhausted, physically and mentally. The thought of getting dressed up and going out to a fancy restaurant doesn’t seem attractive at all. I do appreciate that you think about me and that you love me, but I have a better idea. Why don’t you take the money you were going to use for the restaurant and take the children out for pizza or something? You can have an evening out with the kids and I’ll take a long, warm bath and go to bed early.”
I can hardly believe what I am hearing. I reply, “God has blessed you with a husband who loves you, a husband who thinks about you, and really wants to be with you, and this is how you respond? Sure, the bath idea is great for you, but what about me? Do you know what happens to the blessings God gives you when you don’t properly use them? Do you know how many women would love to be married to a man like me? We will never have the relationship God wants us to have if we both aren’t committed to working on it! There seems to be just one thing that we have in common: I am concerned about you and you are concerned about you! Sure, I’ll take the kids out if that is what you want! We’ll take our time. Maybe go and get pizza in Ohio!” (We live in Philadelphia.) “You enjoy yourself and soak till your skin wrinkles—and, by the way, stick this in the water,” I say as I pull out the bottle of perfume. “But you better think about our relationship and how much you are really committed to it.”
This (fortunately) fictional situation is all too familiar to most of us. What went wrong? How did an idea born out of thankfulness to God and love for my wife end in such anger and accusation? How did the person who was the focus of my love and appreciation become the target of such anger? What unleashed this flow of blame, guilt manipulation, self-righteousness, and accusation? It is easy to see that the problem here is not just communication technique. I have no trouble making myself heard and using words to advance my point! Something deeper is going on. Let me say it in a phrase and then explain. The problem with my words is that they are idol words. No, the spelling is not wrong. Many of our communication problems occur because we are speaking idol words.
Root and Fruit
To understand what I mean, let’s look at two passages, beginning with the words of Christ in Luke 6:43–46:
No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
Jesus uses a metaphor with which we all are familiar, a tree. There is an organic connection between the roots of a tree and the fruit it produces. The same is true with our words. They are the fruit of the root issues found in our hearts. Word problems are always related to heart problems. That’s why we will not solve communication problems by dealing only with our words, any more than we would solve a problem with a plant’s fruit production by dealing only with the fruit. If a plant isn’t producing good fruit, there is a problem with the plant system itself, down to its very roots.
Jesus’ brilliant metaphor reveals that our words are shaped and controlled by the thoughts and motives of our own hearts. It is very tempting to blame others (“She makes me so angry” or “He pushes all my buttons”) or to blame the situation around us (“I just didn’t have time to sit down and discuss it calmly,” or “With four kids in the house all talking at once, a soft answer just doesn’t work”). Christ says that a person’s words come “out of the overflow of his heart.” In the story that opened this chapter, it was tempting to blame Luella for my self-centered, angry, guilt-inflicting words. I wanted to say that I got upset because she was being selfish, but Christ would say no. Luella did not cause my words. She was simply the occasion, the trigger, for my heart to express itself. My words revealed the true desires of my heart.
If we are going to understand our trouble with words, we must begin with the heart. Our tongues are a restless evil because the “heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Word problems reveal heart problems. The people and situations around us do not make us say what we say; they are only the occasion for our hearts to reveal themselves in words.
Sue and Jim illustrated this problem as they glared at each other angrily in my office. I had jumped in once again to take control of a conversation that had gone from a simple recounting of the week to a full-blown volley of accusations. This seemed to happen every time they attempted to talk. Did they have serious communication problems? Yes! Are there many biblical principles that relate to the way they talked to one another? Of course! But their inability to have a sane, loving, restrained, and mutually beneficial conversation powerfully revealed the root of their problem. Until they faced what was going on in their hearts, they would not stay inside God’s communication boundaries.
I vividly recall the day when Sue said to Jim, “For years I’ve blamed you for our inability to talk. I’ve complained to my friends about how hard you are. But God has shown me this week that I have been bitter against you for years. I have kept a record of wrongs and looked with a critical eye at everything you have done. It hit me today that as long as I continue to hate you in my heart, I will not love you with my mouth.” This God-given insight led Jim to confess similar sins of his own heart. And in their mutual confession, Jim and Sue laid the foundation for lasting change in their communication.
The problem with the words I spoke to my wife in this chapter’s opening story was that they were idol words. They revealed the true love that dominated my heart, and it wasn’t Luella—it was myself! An idolatrous heart will produce idol words.
Ruling Desires
What are ruling desires? James 4 can teach us more:
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think that Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (vv. 1–10)
When James asks why we speak quarrelsome words, or why we are better at making war than we are at making peace, he does not answer the questions this way: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your lack of skill in conflict resolution? You want to avoid conflicts, but you haven’t learned the strategies and techniques to be successful at it.” No, James goes in a radically different direction. He directs us to examine the desires of our own hearts. What I speak is directly related to what I want. My words are one means I use to get what is important to me.
Let’s look again at the specific words of this passage. James says, “Don’t they [quarrels and fights] come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you don’t get it.” According to James, quarrels are caused by desires battling within our hearts. Now, we need to be careful here. James does not say it is wrong for us to desire. When you quit desiring, you are seriously deceased! We will always desire something. Notice also that James does not say that the problem is evil desires, that is, that we are desiring things that are bad in and of themselves.
Think back on the story of my desire to spend an evening with my wife. The problem was not that I desired her. That desire was natural, good, and healthy. Nor was the problem that I had some kind of evil desire toward my wife. The original desire to be with her was born out of heartfelt appreciation for her and thankfulness to God. James is not saying that it is wrong to desire or that our problem is that we are desiring bad things. What then is the problem?
The answer is found in this important phrase: “They come from your desires that battle within you.” There is a war going on within our hearts, a war for control. James is saying that when a certain set of desires battles for “turf” in our hearts, it will affect the way we deal with the people around us. Whatever controls our hearts will control our words. In fact, you could argue that if a certain desire controls my heart, there are only two ways I can respond to you. If you help me get what I want, I will enjoy and appreciate you. But if you stand in my way, I will experience (and probably express) anger when you are around. I want something, but because of you I cannot get it, so I will quarrel and fight!
In our story something very important happened to me during the day. A good desire for time with my wife waged war in my heart until it had taken control. Personal desires battled for the authority that only God should exercise over my heart. When God no longer functionally ruled my heart, the desire took on a new character. By the time I reached the house, the desire that motivated me was no longer an expression of love for Luella and worship of God. No, it had become an expression of self-love. I no longer was looking for a way to serve Luella, to communicate my love and appreciation for her. Rather, I wanted to possess her for the evening for my own pleasure! The problem is that I did not see that the original desire had “morphed” into something very different.
If I had been, in fact, motivated by love for Luella, I would have had a wonderful opportunity to express that love by giving her a quiet evening of relaxation. And I would have had a wonderful opportunity to serve God by teaching my children, by example, to look for ways to love their neighbor as themselves. But I was no longer seeking to express my love and appreciation for Luella. I wanted her for myself and I would not let her say no. The desire had become a demand. At that moment it effectively replaced God as the controller of my heart. Scripture calls this an idol. Idolatry is when my heart is controlled or ruled by anything other than God.
This happens to us more than we would tend to think. The desire for success at work becomes a demand for appreciation from the boss. The desire to have enough money to pay the bills morphs into a lust for affluence. The desire to be a good parent becomes a desire to have children who enhance my reputation. The desire for friendship becomes a demand to be accepted and anger when I’m not. What was once a healthy desire takes control, and when this happens, the desire that originally motivated me changes into something very different. Rather than being motivated by a love for God and my neighbor, I am motivated by a pursuit of what will bring me pleasure, and I am angry at anyone who stands in the way.
The Elevation of Desire
An idolatrous heart will produce idol words, words that serve the idol that grips us. It is hard for us to hold our desires loosely. Instead, they tend to take hold of us. Our desires tend to get elevated to a position where they should never be. Here is what happens: A desire battles for control until it becomes a demand. The demand is then expressed (and usually experienced) as a need. (“I need sex.” “I need respect.”) My sense of need sets up my expectation. Expectation when unfulfilled leads to disappointment. Disappointment leads to some kind of punishment. “You want something, but you cannot get it. You quarrel and fight.” So when James says, “You adulterous people,” he is not changing the subject. He is saying something very significant. Adultery takes place when I give the love I have promised one person to someone else. Spiritual adultery occurs when I give the love that belongs to God alone to something or someone else. James is saying that human conflict is rooted in spiritual adultery! This is what had happened in my heart as I planned out the evening. This is a momentous thought! We will not solve our problem with angry words until we humbly address the adultery and idolatry of our hearts.
James has upped the ante here. Perhaps this does not seem comforting, but by so doing he shows us the only solution that really goes to the heart of the problem. The promise of the gospel extends deeper than new techniques and strategies. It aims at more than a temporary lull in the storm of words. The gospel holds out the promise of nothing less than a new heart, one that is no longer enslaved to the passions and desires of the sinful nature. So, for Jim and Sue, for Paul and Luella, there is hope for real and lasting change.
How does this change begin? We need to heed James’s words again as he says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” Change begins at the level of the heart. We must renounce the idols that have replaced God and turn our hearts back to him, so that our words will reflect a heart ruled by God alone. For James, this change is seen on two levels. We must “wash our hands,” that is, there must be change in our behavior. The words we say, the way we say them, and when they are said all must be changed where necessary, but that is not enough. James also says, “Purify your hearts.” Change must include our thoughts and motives as well. We need change both in the content and manner of our talk and in what effectively controls our hearts.
The Great Exchange
By the time I arrived in the kitchen on that imaginary afternoon, a significant exchange had taken place. Without realizing it, I had exchanged thankfulness to God and love for my wife for a worship of self and a demand that my wife serve me. I entered the room unwilling to live without that evening with my wife. I no longer had a loosely held, God-honoring desire, but a demand that had grown to a sense of need. I fully expected Luella to support my idea and run upstairs to get ready. In the face of her disagreement, I immediately got angry at her and did everything I could to get her to yield to my wishes. The person who had been the object of my affection was now the focus of my anger. She hadn’t caused my anger—it flowed out of my own idolatrous desires. Again, those desires were not intrinsically evil. But when they became ruling desires, they replaced God as the ruler of my heart. Though my words were selfish, angry, and manipulative, the more serious problem was that they were idolatrous.
Romans 1 brings this issue to clearer focus for us: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen” (v. 25).
The operative word of this passage is “exchanged.” This is fundamentally what sin is all about. In the heart of every sinner is a tendency to exchange worship and service of the Creator for worship and service of the created thing. All human beings are worshippers; the issue is only what or whom we worship. Idolatry gives the worship that belongs to God to some aspect of his creation. It might be a craving for human love, respect, appreciation, or applause. It might be a certain person, position, economic state, or living situation. There is no end to the created things that can replace God as the object of our worship.
There is a constant migration in the heart of every sinner away from the worship and service of God toward the worship and service of some aspect of the creation. It can be a lifelong migration—that is, a theme of heart idolatry can characterize a person’s whole life—or it can be more spontaneous and short-term, as in the story we’ve been considering. In this case, a desire takes control for a few hours, but still wreaks havoc.
Putting Communication in
the Right Drawer
What we are considering is the bottom line on the war of words. The Scriptures tell us that if we are ever going to see lasting change in our communication, we must start from within. Only as we deal with the idolatry of our hearts will we be freed from speaking idol words. As we said in the first chapter, God is the Lord and Creator of human language. All of our words must be spoken according to his purpose and for his glory. To do anything less is idolatry.
One final piece of biblical wisdom will help us here. The Pharisees tried to ensnare Christ by asking him which was the greatest command in the law. His answer is one of the most significant passages in all of Scripture (see Matt. 22:37–40). Christ says you can boil all of the teaching of Scripture down to two areas: love for God and love for people, and he says something else important. There is an order of importance here: love for God is foundational to everything else. If you do not love God above all else, you will not love your neighbor as yourself. Any lack of love for neighbor, in word or deed, reflects some deficiency in your love for God (see 1 John 4:7–21). This is why James says that human conflict is rooted in spiritual adultery.
Jesus’ statement addresses one of the principal mistakes the church tends to make when it deals with the subject of communication. Christ says that there are two drawers in God’s filing cabinet: drawer one is entitled “Love for God” and drawer two is entitled “Love for Neighbor.” Everything Scripture teaches can be filed in one of these drawers. Our mistake has been to treat the issue of communication as if it were a drawer two issue exclusively. When we deal with communication problems in marriage and family, in parenting, friendship, community, and the body of Christ, too often we immediately turn to the scriptural commands and principles that speak to this topic without examining the passages that address the heart behind the principles. In so doing, we neglect the heart issues that must be addressed if these passages are to be obeyed. Words that are spoken up to God’s standard and according to his design always begin with a heart that loves God above all else, and therefore desires to speak in a loving way to one’s neighbor.
Communication is both a drawer one and drawer two issue. If we do not deal with what we really love, with what really rules our hearts, we will never be able to speak to one another in the way God has called us to speak. We must start with the heart, because as Christ said in Luke 6, it is out of the overflow of our hearts that our mouths speak. As James has said, we fight and quarrel because of the desires that have taken control there. Our words are one of the ways we seek to gain, maintain, and keep what is really important to us, what we really want, and what we are really living for. If idol words are going to turn into God-honoring words, we must begin by humbly examining our hearts. What or whom are we really serving?
How are you feeling as you read this? Perhaps you are thinking, Great, Paul, I started out with one problem and now I’ve got two! I’ve never seen these angry, quarrelsome words as something against God. This is really discouraging! But don’t be discouraged. God never reveals our hearts to discourage us. Convicting us of sin is one of the most profound ways he demonstrates his love for us. He is committed to completing his work in us. He will not allow us to live with hearts that are enslaved. He works in every situation so that we would know the freedom his death purchased for us. So, he exposes not only the fruit of our sin (wrong words), but the roots of our sin (heart idols) as well. The conviction of our hearts is a sign that we are his dearly loved children, who have not only been forgiven of our sins, but are in the process of being delivered from them.
Don’t be discouraged! Your Redeemer has come. He is battling on your behalf in every situation, in each relationship, so that you can win the war of words.
Getting Personal: Getting to the Heart
of Communication Problems
In what ways do you tend to blame your communication problems on things outside yourself? (In this fallen world there will always be plenty of ways to shift blame!)
1. Do you tend to blame your negative communication on situations?
■ traffic
■ schedule
■ finances
■ weather
■ vehicle
■ job
■ family
■ extended family
2. Do you tend to blame others?
■ wife
■ husband
■ children
■ parents
■ boss
■ co-workers
■ body of Christ
3. Do you tend to blame God? “If only I had . . .”
■ more money
■ a more understanding spouse
■ a better education
■ a more understanding pastor/church
■ more obedient children
■ a more loving, supportive extended family
■ better neighbors
■ a more reasonable boss
Examine your heart with hope, remembering that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).