I Said in My Haste…

Men are known by their words.

Some words are spoken thoughtlessly.  Some are spoken with thought but also with malice.  Some words are intended to hurt, others are intended to heal.  “Words fitly spoken”—kindly, intelligent, and timely words—are “like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

Words are often spoken under stress. Under stress, holy people may speak words that are hasty.  Such hasty words do not reflect the true temper of their lives, nor their studied thought, nor their deep desires.  When holy people speak hasty words they should be quick to admit them.

“The man after God’s own heart” often wrote out the confessions of his heart (in the Psalms).  Though David was “the sweet singer of Israel,” at times his words were severe and hasty.

“In haste” David once complained that God was no longer friendly to him—“I am cut off from before thine eyes.”  This feeling of the loss of the conscious and comforting presence of God is one of the most common trials to the saints.  Job felt that God had forsaken him—“O that I knew where I might find him…he is not there.”  Jeremiah once felt that God had betrayed him—“O Lord, thou hast deceived me.”  And the chief agony on the cross must have been Jesus’ own feeling of abandonment—“Why hast thou forsaken me?”

But the facts are all to the contrary.  God does not forsake His people.  “The Lord will not forsake his people.”  “Persecuted, but not forsaken.”  “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  Are these promises enough?

David also confessed to hasty—and therefore wrong—judgment about people.  “I said in my haste, all men are liars.”  In moments of calm and sober reflection, David knew his own statement was false.

Once Elijah thought that all God’s people were apostates—“I, even I only, am left.”  But God corrected Elijah—“Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel.”  Elijah had more fellow believers than he knew.  So have we!

Let’s slow down when tempted to speak in haste.  Hasty words are seldom true words.  They are seldom kindly words.  Let us wait for calmness before we speak.

Let us also wait for the facts before we speak.  The facts are often better than our fears.

--George E. Failing