One thing that I am really trying to work on is to avoid any "god speak" when I speak, whether it be in church or in daily life. Enough already of spiritual cliches!
"Just trust the Lord."
"I want to share my testimony."
"God, bless all the missionaries."
"Bless both the gift and the giver."
"Thank you, Lord, for this time of food, fun and fellowship."
"Bless this food to our bodies."
"God wants to save the lost."
Yawn. Sigh. ZZZZZ.
I wonder sometimes if God doesn't catch a few z's as we talk to one another and to Him in His kingdom.
Are you in agreement with me that what we might consider doing is blowing up our "spiritual language," our meaningless "God talk"?
Jesus once, rather pointedly, told the Pharisees that they were guild of using "meaningless repetition." when they prayed.
Why not stretch our verbal vocabulary to speak in a way that everyone understands from the oldest saint to the man in the street who doesn't know anything about God?
Cliche is a French term meaning, stereotype.
Webster defines stereotype as, "repeating without variation; frequent and almost mechanical repetition of the same thing...Something conforming to a fixed pattern."
In His relationship with us, I wonder if God doesn't feel like every day is a day taken out of the movie "Groundhog day."
Here's a suggestion. Ask someone at your work or here at the church to keep you accountable for every cliche that you use. Pay someone a dollar for every cliche that you use in a two-hour time period. Eliminate at least one cliche from your speech this week. Be creative!
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I definitely want to be challenged to know when I speak of God that it comes through with passion and meaning and not just as a cliché. However, even writing this it’s easy to automatically write phrases that I have heard my almost my entire life. However, I get excited when I hear someone say to me, “I want to share my testimony, bless the gift and the giver.” If someone wants to share their testimony I usually can’t wait to hear all the great things God has done in their lives and their actually giving God the credit. The latter of the two phrases above, if we say it with meaning and really believe God will do that, then why not speak this blessing over them. I love hearing those words prayed over me and I receive it every single time. We hear enough curses in our speaking and if it sounds like clichés, it may actually be just that, but I think if we know the source, see their fruits in the kingdom, we can hear more than just words. I always feel I am critiqued when I pray in public and when I pray for my food and in the end, I just back off. Can’t we just give our praises and our phrases and hope those listening hear the words, whether simple or extended, to mean what was said and that it comes from the heart. I agree, lets be creative, but if creativity becomes just the latest terminology without meaning, that too is meaningless. Some times we just take for granted phrases we have heard for so long and we have to come full circle to say them with meaning, like “trust in the Lord.” It’s all meaningless if your heart and mind don’t mean what you say.
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