Communication can either create a gracious tone for your home or crush the hearts of your family. Since communication comes into play every day, with every conversation, every conflict, and every relationship, it has the potential to make or break a situation. 

The words we use and how we use them are powerful. They can comfort, encourage, and heal, or they can belittle, insult, and wound. Often times, conflicts in the home turn into conflicts about how they communicated about the conflict, rather than dealing with the initial problem itself. What begins as a disagreement over where to spend the holidays turns into a fight about what was said about the in-laws during the discussion, thus creating a new conflict while the original discussion remains unsettled. 

There are entire conferences and books devoted to strengthening communication within the home, and many wise words of counsel have been offered on the subject. One of my favorite words on this family issue comes, not from a conference or recent book, but from an old book written by the half-brother of Jesus: 

"Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." (James 1:19) 

These three calls can revolutionize communication in the home. Imagine a family that embraces the call to eagerly listen to one another so that all truly feel heard. Imagine a family that aims to let their words be few, choosing their words carefully, speaking the truth in great love while seasoning their words with grace. And, imagine a family that rarely burdens one another with fits of rage or outbursts of anger; a family that rarely raises their voices and frequently invite patience to reign in their home. 

The home you're picturing as you imagine this sort of family is a home that has had their communication revolutionized by the Word of God. 

It seems so simple: (1) Be quick to hear; (2) Be slow to speak; (3) Be slow to anger. And yet, we all know how quickly the flesh will challenge this vision. 

To enjoy this sort of biblical communication, we must quench the flesh that wants to shout and be heard and make their point and have their way and win the debate and put the other person in their place. And we must yield to the Spirit that longs to glorify God through gracious speech, patient hearts, and gentle words. 

There are examples of righteous anger and times when bold words are called for (see John 2:13-16; Psalm 7:11; 2 Kings 17:18; 1 Kings 11:9-10), but when James calls us to be slow to anger, he is talking about the sinful anger of man, which, he writes, "Does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:20). These are the fits of anger that Paul attributes to the deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:20), that take the place of the much needed fruit of the Spirit: peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).

So once again, we see a call to die to the flesh and walk in the Spirit, for these two wage war against one another, and far too often, our families become prisioners of war or collateral damage. 

If you are on this path already, if your family's communication better reflects the anger of man than the peace of God, then choose today to allow Christ to tattoo James 1:19 on your heart as he begins to revolutionize your communication.