Paul David Tripp - War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles

A series published in cooperation with

The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation

Glenside, Pennsylvania

Susan Lutz, Series Editor

Available in the series:

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

Paul David Tripp, Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens

Edward T. Welch, Blame It on the Brain? Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience

James C. Petty, Step by Step: Divine Guidance for Ordinary Christians

Paul David Tripp, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles

Edward T. Welch, AddictionsA Banquet in the Grave: Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel

Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemers Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change

David Powlison, Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of Scripture

war

of words

getting to the
heart of your
communication
struggles

Paul David Tripp

2000 by Paul David Tripp

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwiseexcept for brief quotations for the purpose of review or comment, without the prior permission of the publisher, P&R Publishing Company, P.O. Box 817, Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865-0817.

With few exceptions, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Italics (or reversed italics) indicate emphasis added. The exceptions are passages at the heads of chapters 313 and at the head of each part division, which are from The Message by
Eugene H. Peterson (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993).

Prayers at the beginning of part divisions are from Prayers for Troubled Times by Jay E. Adams (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R Publishing, 1979). Used by permission.

Page design by Tobias Design

Typesetting by Michelle Feaster

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tripp, Paul David, 1950-

War of words : getting to the heart of your communication struggles / Paul David Tripp.

p. cm (Resources for changing lives)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-10: 0-87552-604-7 (pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-87552-604-1 (pbk.)

1. Interpersonal communicationReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Oral communicationReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.
II. Series.

BV4597.53.C64 T75 2000

241.672dc21 99-049318

To

Justin, Ethan, Nicole, and Darnay.

Jesus has used you to teach me

how to speak like the Father.

Thank you for being so patient.

Contents

What makes someone write a book? Sometimes authors write because of expertise. Through education and experience they have gained a specialized knowledge and understanding of a particular topic. Their writing allows their readers to grow in the same area without undergoing all the training and experiences themselves.

An author may also write out of desperation. In his life there is a weakness or struggle that needs to be addressed. He examines, studies, meditates, and applies what he has learned to help himself grow. He then puts the fruit of his labors down on paper in the hope that others will benefit as he has.

I have not written this book out of expertise, but out of desperation. I have told many people during the writing process that I did not write this book, it wrote me!

When I was sixteen years old, I was rehearsing early one Saturday morning for a statewide speech competition. My mom heard me from her bedroom next door. She got up, came into the room and asked, May I interrupt you for a moment? I didnt really mind because I was ready to take a break. Then she said something that was nothing short of prophetic. Paul, she said, God has given you a special ability to communicate, but watch out, because it will also be your greatest struggle. Those words ring much truer to me today than they did the morning she spoke them.

It is true that our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. This book has been penned out of weaknessmy weakness. But it is weakness that has been tempered by the intervention of Gods amazing grace and the powerful insights of Scripture.

In the pages that follow, we will examine something that sets us off from the rest of creation, something we do repeatedly every day: we talk. This book, however, is different from most on the topic. It is not a discussion of the techniques and skills for effective communication. Rather, it is the story of the great battle for our hearts that is the reason for our struggle with words. Yet there is more here than just an examination of the battle. We will also get a grasp of Gods plan for our talk and celebrate his enabling grace.

Thank you to all the people whose words God has used to change my heart. May God change yours as well, through the pages of this book. Thanks also to Sue Lutz, whose skill with words has made this a better book.

talk is not cheap

Words kill, words give life;
theyre either poison or fruit
you choose. (Prov. 18:21)

That temper of mine!

Forgive me, Lord

I let it get the better of me again.

When will I ever learn to wait

until Ive heard the whole story,

to respond under pressure

as Christ would,

to meet evil with good?

Im growing, Lord,

but my growth is far too slow.

Till my life

break up clods of pride,

root out weeds of selfishness,

plow under every vestige of stubbornness.

Cultivate me and sow liberally

more of the Spirits

fruit-bearing seed.

Send showers

and storms (if need be);

shine brightly on my soul.

Then I will sprout forth

patience and kindness and love

and self-control

in abundance,

And my tongue will learn

to help and heal

and praise the Name
of the One through Whom

I pray,

Amen.

God Speaks

And God blessed them and said to them... (Gen. 1:28)

NO matter where you live, no matter what you do every day, there is one thing that you do all day long. You talk. From the first Is it time to get up already? to the final Goodnight, I gotta get some sleep, you talk. In the bedroom, bathroom, hallway, and kitchen, in the car, the store, the factory, and the boardroom, you talk. To your spouse, children, friends, family, neighbors, and fellow-workers, you talk. It is what human beings do, almost without interruption and often without a thought about how important it is to human life. The ability to communicate is one of the things that separates us from the rest of creation. We are people and we talk. We need to recognize how wordy our lives actually are.

The word itself doesnt seem to carry the freight. Talk seems so normal, so ordinary, so unimportant, so harmless. Yet there are few things we do that are more important. And underneath the normality of it all is a great struggle, a war of words that we fight every day. Here are some familiar ways we talk about our struggle with words.

I never thought when we were going together that he would talk to me the way he does now!

I cant believe what Im hearing when my son talks to me!

She hung up on me right in the middle of a sentence.

My parents never talk to me unless I am in trouble.