Say What You Need to Say

Our front porch was big and wide. When the late afternoon sun hit the wooden floor it made for the perfect place to read the sports section on an early summer evening. I’m thirteen years old, lying on my stomach, checking what the Pirates did last night. This is about my only way of knowing. There is no ESPN. No Internet. Just a small paragraph giving me the score and highlights – Stargell hit one out. My dad is sitting in a chair in the corner of the porch next to me, drinking iced tea. He is there, which means he didn’t stop at the bar after work. That’s a good thing. Through the screen door I can smell that my mom has supper on. My brother and sisters are around someplace but right now I am undistracted. I have sun on a porch, a sports section and my dad next to me. I have the whole summer before me. I’m about to be called to supper. What’s better than that?

I was about twelve then, which means that I hadn’t started thinking about girls yet. My big worries were what games were me and my friends going to play that day and did I have enough money to buy baseball cards. In a few years, things would get more complicated. My dad and I would start to have trouble talking to each other. We started getting angry at each other. We forgot how to laugh. There was a lot of silence.

We became tongue-tied. We cared about each other but we couldn’t find the words. And moments passed by that we couldn’t get back.

There’s a scene in the movie, My Best Friend’s Wedding, when Julia Roberts’ character has the opportunity to tell her best friend that she realizes that she loves him. She’s never told him this before. She’s been afraid to express her true feelings. Here best friend is, in two days, about to marry another woman. It’s getting late in the game for Julia. The moment comes. . .and the moment passes by.

Dave Matthews has a song lyric that speaks to the danger of silence:

He wakes up in the morning
Does his teeth, bite to eat, and he’s rolling
Never changes a thing
The week ends the week begins
She thinks, we look at each other
Wondering what the other is thinking
But we never say a thing
These crimes between us grow deeper

It’s important to say what you need to say to the people you care about. Saying the right thing at the right time is what we call a blessing, a benediction - bene = good, diction=words, good words.

Words have the power to shape events and people. Jesus said a word can move a mountain. A word can open the eyes of the blind and make the lame to walk. A word can make enemies become friends. Certainly there are times to hold your tongue and conserve your words. There are times when careless words do much harm.

“A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish anything – or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke, and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.” James 3.4-5 The Message

John Maxwell tells the story of a couple who went to divorce court over words:

“Why do you want a divorce?” the judge asked. “On what grounds?”
“All over. We have an acre and a half,” the woman responded.
“No, no,” said the judge. “Do you have a grudge?”
“Yes, sir. Fits two cars.”
“I need a reason for the divorce,” said the judge impatiently. “Does he beat you up?”
“Oh, no. I’m up at six every day to do my exercises. He gets up later.”
“Please,” said the exasperated judge. “What is the reason you want a divorce?”
“Oh,” she replied. “we can’t seem to communicate with each other.”


We’ve all misspoken and regretted it. We’ve burned and been burned by careless words. Sometimes it seems that we’d all be better off if we just shut it.


But then I read this: “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the word was God.” John 1.1

God created with words. God comes talking. God is a hopeless talker. He talks so much because he has so much hope for us. God even speaks through us and does great things.

God’s word spoken through us is a powerful thing! Ladies and gentlemen, it’s good news!

One of the most telling events in the Gospel is recounted by Mark. Jesus and the disciples are traveling across the Sea of Galilee by boat at night. A violent storm comes up. There’s rain and thunder and lightning. Waves are swelling and crashing. And Jesus, well, he’s sleeping. The disciples, they aren’t sleeping. They are worrying. They are gripping. They’re waiting for Jesus to wake up and do something. They’re afraid someone’s going to lose their life and that someone could be them. So they shake Jesus.

“Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” Do something Jesus!

And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Jesus knew the right words to end a storm. The disciples wondered, “Who is this that even the wind and waves obey?”


The Word has power. We don’t even know how much power. And that power can be used for good in us.

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

I have often quoted this verse with the emphasis on in love. I assume that people tend to hurt others with truth. But that is not necessarily the Apostle’s assumption.

Telling the truth to someone else is a loving thing to do. Sure, you can do damage “in the name of truth.”

“If I speak in the tongues of men and angels and but do not love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13.1

But a good word has the power to heal the present and change the future. I remember the times my father told me he loved me. I remember both times. The first time he was probably inebriated. But the second time he was very sober, very intentional, very tender. And it hit me like a warm shower washing away years of dust. I believe my dad changed our relationship with those words. They had been waiting for years to come out of him. Though I didn’t know it, I had been waiting for years to hear those words. I have peace today about my father because of those words. I confess, I probably don’t say “I love you” enough to the people I care about. But I when I do, and I get that smile from them that they know, well. . . .

“To make an apt answer is a joy to man, and a word in season, how good it is!” Proverbs 15.23

To say the right thing at the right time – beautiful.

So before you do anything else today, I want you to run, don’t walk, run to the person you need to talk to. It could be an apology you need to give. It could be a thank you. It could be the words, “Hey, I love you.”

Say what you need to say.