007: The Power of the Tongue

-Transcript-

Bruce: Welcome to episode seven of our Unshackled Love podcast. I am here with my beautiful, wonderful, crazy wife,

Kaila: Kaila Payne. And for those of you who are just joining the podcast, Bruce and I, we're married,

Bruce: for over 10 years

Kaila: and we have nine,

beautiful,

Bruce: wonderful,

crazy like their mom children made in God's image too.

Kaila: Yes. And so while we love our children very much, you know, they're kids and just like anybody at any age, we've all just got our things .

Bruce: And like my wife, who I love, she is still my wife, right? Say it's just like kids, kids, wife, wife. I don't know. Anyways, we're sitting here laughing as we sit here and say this.

Today we have a special guest that we're bringing. It is our wonderful, beautiful, crazy daughter,

Zoe: Zoe Payne,

Bruce: and she is kind of crazy. She's one of those kids who I can sit here and say, if I were to sit there and model my life and my moral compass after it would be her. The reason in which we're bringing her on this podcast today is, the theme of the topic today is the power of our tongue.

And before we get started, beautiful, crazy wife, can you please sit here and start with a word from the Bible, please.

Kaila: Yeah. So the passage that we're gonna look at to start is James chapter 3: 7-10, and it says,

"People contain all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, fish, but no one contain the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth, but surely my brothers and sisters, this is not right."

Bruce: When you look at the tongue or you think of the tongue, it's this little small, tiny thing, in our bodies, yet it produces so much good and so much bad. And looking at it, there's two things I wanna look at today.

The first one, Are the words that come out of our mouth, in particular cursing. As a public education, high school teacher, I'm just amazed at this point in time by the amount of curse words that I hear on a regular basis. You know, as a kid if I were to said curse words or maybe with you as a kid, even though you're a lot younger than me, oh, that's a funny story.

A-whole-nother funny story. She said something about somebody being in their prime. What? Go ahead. Say this funny story. This funny story.

Kaila: This is hilarious. We were having a conversation with our daughter as we were watching football, and she was talking about all these great NFL quarterbacks and she was like, man, I would've loved to have seen you so-and-so in his prime and so-and-so in his prime.

And then she mentioned Roethlisberger and she said, did he ever have a prime? I said, yeah, he was in his prime when I was like in middle school .

Bruce: And that is when I said, "Him and I are the same age." And I was like, uh, And she's like laughing as she is right now. That is a real cackle coming across, the microphone.

It was pretty funny. And so that's a good laugh for the, for the night. But anyways, yes. So the amount of cursing that has gone on or that has come to be normal at this point in time is crazy compared to when I was a kid and when my wife was a kid. And so, I just wanted to bring our daughter into it.

As I said, you know, we all have our faults. We all have things that eat in our crawl or sit there in our thorn our sides. And for her, it's cursing, which is the funniest thing. Cause if you look at her, I mean, she's this cute, gorgeous girl, young woman at this point in time, phenomenal chef, top 1% of her school has a beautiful pug that's 36 months and still wears a diaper.

What, what are some of those nicknames you have for that pug of yours? The one that has a tongue sticking out and wears a diaper at three years old.

Zoe: His name's peanut butter, but I call him a couple of names, like Bepee. Fish. Mil lil gordito mi amore. Ducky.

Bruce: Ugly.

Zoe: He's not ugly. He's gorgeous.

Bruce: Fero Perro?

Zoe: No, George.

He's gorgeous.

Bruce: He's gorgeous. And so today, Zoe at school, I know I hear it and so if I hear it, I mean, I can only imagine if you hear it or not too.

So can you tell us about where or how you hear cursing at school?

Zoe: Cursing is pretty much used all the time by a variety of people, whether it's students or faculty.

It's just used in a variety of ways as well, whether it's happy tones and describing something or out of anger or bitterness. It really just depends on the situation.

Bruce: And so you being a God-fearing young woman who loves Jesus with your whole entire heart who models Jesus on a regular basis, do you partake in this type of activity too, or do you sit there and do a good job of towing the line?

Zoe: I do my best towing the line at school. You know, there's little times where I get angry and it just comes out, but mainly it's in the car where I lose it and I lose control, and that's where I let it blow.

Bruce: Let me ask you this. When you got rear-ended last week, did you let it blow?

Zoe: Yeah, it was bad.

Bruce: That's a whole nother story.

She did get rear-end as she was leaving the parking lot. The driver who rear ended her tried to run away and some other high school kid chased him down. Priceless. Epic, I guess. Uh, anyways, so we're, we're sitting here with her and you talk about cursing. And here's the funny thing, if you were to ask my wife and I, like, we don't see her curse or hear her curse at home, Rarely, if ever.

Why is it different? Why do you find yourself cursing at school or in the car, but not at home? Like magic is like a magic wand. Is it like a dog shock collar where you're like, Hey, guess what? I know if I curse at home, my dad's gonna shock me. Like, why don't you curse at home and why do you curse? Or why is it okay for you to curse in the car or at school?

Zoe: I feel like at school it's very normalized or even in the car when people get mad, it's normal to, or at least like that's what I'm taught from teachers and other students, that it's normal in society to just cuss when you get angry, you or cuss to place emphasis on certain things, where at home like we don't cuss for that and y'all hold different standards and there's a bunch of kids to be an example for.

Bruce: Wait two things there. Okay. First off, there are kids, you are here to be examples for, aren't there kids at school that you should be an example for as well?

Zoe: Yeah. Yeah.

Bruce: And then the other thing is, is the reason why you don't curse. Is it for Kaila and I or is it for God at home? Like, why don't you curse?

Zoe: A lot of things I for God that I do, but at home mainly it's just out of respect for y'all and for the kids.

Bruce: I love the honesty there cuz this is a conversation that we've had in the past. I think the hard part here is, the reason why we have those standards isn't because it's a standard kaila and I woke up for one day and said, Hey, we're gonna have this wonderful standard of not cursing in our house. Like, hey, guess what? Today we are choosing to sit there and if you're looking in the Bible, in the 67 book of Kaila and Bruce, chapter one verse one, there's no cursing in the Payne household.

That didn't happen. The reason why we don't have you guys curse is because it goes back to what the Bible says in terms of controlling our tongue. I think it also goes back to what we've learned in life, right? I mean, we, we haven't gotten to where we're at now, and we're not even close to being really good at what we do in terms of parenting and with our own tongues, but it's stuff that we've learned along the way, and it's the importance of making sure we have good things come out of our tongues.

And so, looking at you and at school, right? I mean, you talk about students cursing. Didn't you just say something about teachers cursing as well?

Zoe: Yeah. Teachers cuss quite a bit at my school.

Bruce: Like do they sit there and curse at kids and call them names or is it more or less just part of their vernacular?

Zoe: Um, . I wouldn't say it's, it's like part of the vernacular, but they definitely use it to describe things when they're, there's like a lack for better words, but you know, sometimes they mess around with kids and call 'em certain things.

Bruce: I guess, you know, for me I get it, you know, as a high school kid, it's become commonplace.

I get, in terms of things being common placed, I don't get the cursing aspect of it. But let me ask you this. What would happen if you were to sit there and stand out and be different than the rest of the kids by not cursing or what would happen if you were the kid that sit there and was the cursing police and told kids not to curse?

Zoe: Well actually I tried doing that and I tried making other words, like plenty of my friends hear me say, golly, or like, goodness gracious,

Bruce: golly?

Zoe: Oh yeah, for sure. And they poke fun at me and they make jokes and mock, but really just like, builds an accountability for me.

Bruce: Accountability. You had a pretty funny story in terms of accountability, in terms of you in a group text message.

You wanna go ahead and share that story right now?

Zoe: Yeah, sure. So I'm in a group chat with a couple friends and one of them tells me something that throws me totally off guard and I like text in all caps. WHAT THE HELL?! Because I'm just so surprised and they totally just like got sidetracked from telling me their story of what happened.

And both of them were just like, Zoe, what are you doing? No, stop. Do better. You're not supposed to say that. That's not you.

Bruce: It's not you. Because like I said earlier, you know, in this podcast we do not hear her talk and curse at home ever. She's actually the kid who sits there and helpful. She does dishes at 11 o'clock at night.

She gets up and takes the kids to school at 5:30. She's the kid who sits there and is like, I'm going to youth group, or I'm going to church, or I'm gonna go hang out with friends. You know, whatever it might be. So when we sit here and hear these fables of sorts from other kids about her cursing at school, man, it's like, it was shocking at first.

And then when it continued and we heard more and more stories come out of our other kids' mouth, about man, you should hear Zoe talk when she's not around you guys. It's like, no way. And so as a high school teacher, it's hard to be the kid that sits there and is different than the rest.

You just wanna fit in and you wanna be like your friends and you don't wanna be looked at as different. Honey. Anything you wanna add to that?

Kaila: I think that there's a lot of people that would agree with that. But in the Bible, when it says that we are God's holy people, when you look at the root of that word, holy, and this is where I'm gonna go nerd on you, um, that word actually means to be set apart for God.

So it is, it's different from the world because you're being set apart for God and his purposes. And so I think it is natural for us to want to fit in or for us to want to kind of, oh, what are they doing? Or listen to the same music or watch the same shows. And you wanna be part of the in-group, but it's really important to have those friends that are going to hold you accountable to those higher standards.

So I do appreciate that Zoe's found herself some good friends that are going to in a group text say no. Don't use those words. let's use better words. You know, we don't, especially to me, what I don't understand about cursing is because I feel cursing is so unnecessary. And to me, I personally just think that if you are smart enough you can use other words, there is, I heard Zoe say something like, for lack of a better word, , like there's just another way to describe it.

There is like, you know, saying golly, or, oh my goodness. Or really, really, I mean, there are different things that we can say that doesn't require cursing in my humbled opinion. And so to me, I just think more or less like what is causing someone to curse, and maybe it is that it's just so normalized. And actually I have another.

Funny little tiny story. I was having a second grader today, he's one of my really advanced typers, and so I was gonna let him type m a story, and he came up to me and he's reading me his story, and he's like, so excited. And it's this drama or this action about this woman who stubbed her toe and lost her shoe.

And then she fell down the mountain and she got to the bottom of the mountain and she says, and he goes, how do you spell F U? And I was like, wait, what? And he's like, like she just screamed it like F you. was like telling, he said, could she say something else? And he's like, but she was really upset.

Bruce: kinda like Zoe when she's driving her car.

Kaila: Exactly. That's what I was thinking of. And I was like, maybe she says like, oh, farts. I was like, I was trying to help him come up with something else and he just looked at me and finally he was, Okay. And he walked away. But this is a second grader, you know, so he obviously was exposed to that somewhere or her is hearing it at home or hearing it from brothers and sisters or watching it on tv, whatever it is.

I think, like Zoe said, it's such a shame that it's becoming normalized and that people feel this is the only way to express themselves.

Bruce: Yeah, for sure. And I. You just hit on the head. What we take in is what comes out. If you take in garbage, whether it's tv, show, music, whatever it might be, you're gonna there and produce garbage coming out.

You sit there and take the Bible in, or you take wisdom in, you're gonna spit good stuff biblical stuff out. Wisdom outta your mouth and so I think it's something, that a) comes with time, but it's also on purpose. It's not by accident. It's like the same difference of sitting there. If I sit there and go and eat eight pieces of pizza, there's gonna be repercussions of it.

It's not gonna be good stuff coming outta me. Or actually, if you were to go eat, Eight pieces of pizza with red sauce. It would not be a good thing as your acid reflux would kick in. Right. And actually, a funny story about pizza and about talking about this, what comes in goes out is just a couple days ago talking about pizza.

We're sitting there, my wife bought pizza, the local pizza place. Buy one, get one free on Tuesdays. Us being teachers, limited funds, guess what? Feeding 11 kids. We sit there and take the deals as we can get it. I know typically on Tuesdays it's Taco Tuesdays, but we get buy one, get one free pizza. That's right at Tony C's.

Thank you, Tony C's, and so we're sitting there and I grab two pieces of pizza. And as I do, my little girl, our little five year old HG goes, I want some. And I said, Harvest Grace, you don't want some cuz you don't like pizza. And without a blink, without missing the beat, she goes to me, shut your mouth daddy.

And I was like, What? What? What did you just say? I said, you don't like pizza? She goes, shut your mouth, daddy. And I'm playing this through my head. Guess what? She didn't just sit there and make that up on her own. It's something that she's heard. And I go, why did you tell me to shut my mouth? And she goes, because you tell me to shut up.

And I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. . And so all of a sudden I become the student. At this point in time, I'm like, okay, I wanna learn more about this right now. It is, it's something that she had heard, something that she had taken in. She had learned that when a, she talks too much. She just told to shut up. And I said to her, HG?

She goes, yes, daddy. I go, how do you feel when I tell you to shut up? And she goes, it hurts my heart. And I was like, man, now you're getting my pizza. Actually not the whole thing. I just gave her the crust cuz that's what she really wanted. And I'm feeling bad and I'm convicted and I'm like, okay, you wanna know what?

And this goes back to the same principle about Zoe. She sits there and she curses at school but she doesn't curse at home. When I go to school and teach, I don't tell kids to shut up. In fact, I tell kids to "Shutush" cuz I, that way they can go home and they can never tell their parents. I told 'em to shut up.

So a long time ago when I first started teaching, "Shutush" and they're like, what does that mean? I go, same difference is shut up. But guess what? You're not gonna go home and tell your parents, I told you to "shutush" so it's worked this many years down the road. Yet at home, my kids talk all nine of 'em, and I tell 'em to shut up and here we are.

My own learning thing that I can take from this.

Kaila: Well, that actually leads us into the second way that we use our words and how they're harmful is because sometimes we say things, and maybe it's not a curse word, but it can be a negative thing, and maybe we even spin that negative thing and we call it sarcasm.

Or we say, you know, I was just joking. And so I know sometimes, maybe we're saying, shut up to the kids or whatever, and we say like, shut up. Like, oh, come on already. Be quiet and we kind of say it in this like half joking tone of voice, but then we're like, oh, but we really kind of mean it. And I think that the other part of controlling our tongue and really thinking about our words is also our tone and how we're saying things and how that's building up people and how our words are affecting people and how they're interpret.

Bruce: I go back to when I was a kid and my dad used to always tell me one, oh crap, and you didn't use the word crap, but one oh crap, wipes out 10 attaboys. And the same thing goes for things that come out of our mouth. I can sit there and say 10 things that are very nice to my wife or kids, and then that one thing that slips outta my mouth that I just let come out, tears her down or tears them down and the 10 good things I said, just go right out the window.

They're not sitting there thinking about the 10 nice things they said, the thing they're talking about or thinking about the one mean thing that just tore down those 10 building blocks. And so I think it's important in our house, my wife has started this like little game of build up, tear down, push up, push down. What's that thing that you sit there and call? What's the game?

Kaila: Put downs and put up. So our,

Bruce: I thought that was a, our son who's six years old, who doesn't speak English yet. I thought he was trying to say pushups. But anyways, go ahead. He's like pushups. I was like, yeah, get down, gimme five pushups, put ups, put up, put

Kaila: up, put up. So what is the put up?

Bruce: So, well, it's the opposite. Is that the, is it the ice cream when we were kids or When I was a kid? No, those are push pops. No put ups,

Kaila: So, um, we have irish twins. We've got a lot of 'em, but specifically

Bruce: we have like Irish quintuplets, but whatever. That's a whole story for a different day. We've got really good at knowing what makes kids. But anyways,

Kaila: so our eight and our nine year old, they're a boy and a girl. They're 11 months apart, and I could say that it's because they're a boy and a girl, but then we have lots of other boy and girls sibling sets that do not fight as much as those two.

There is something about their personalities.

Bruce: I think it's the fact they both have big foot. We just went and got 'em shoes. One of 'em was a size seven men and the other one was a size six in women's. Anyways, sorry.

Kaila: Yeah, and they're eight and nine. So just think, run those numbers by your head. And one more time.

Um, they just tend to get in fights a little bit extra, like they're both extra spicy towards each other. And the other day one of them, Said something mean to the other. And then of course, you know the other one can't leave it down. They've gotta say something spicy back. And finally I said, you know what?

I am tired of you guys putting each other down. If I hear you say a put down, you're gonna owe your brother or sister what you're gonna owe the other person two put ups where you have to compliment them. And they both looked at me like, I might as well have been speaking Chinese because they were like, what do you mean?

A compliment, like, goodness gracious, let's say something nice for once , and it was actually really hard for them. And so sure enough, a few minutes go by. little girlfriend says something mean to her brother. I said, Finn, you owe him two put up. And her eyes got so big, she was like, what? I said, yeah, you owe her two put up.

Well then you wanna know. Sure enough, he was like, yeah, Finn, you owe me two. You can give her two put up right back. And I made them talk nice to each other and it was amazing to me and it was really enlightening to me in that moment how hard it for them to actually say nice things about each other. I

Bruce: can only imagine I, I could sit there and see the nine year old sitting into her and saying, Hey, great job on your math, math test a day.

Good job getting a 92. I got a 94. They're both on the same grade too, so I can only see him and his sarcasm coming outta his mouth just like that. And then her sitting there saying, Hey Seiders, good job running the mile today. It is great that you got seven minutes. I did six minutes and 30 seconds. And so yes, I love your put ups.

I think saying good things out of our mouth, it's life building, right? We, we have a tongue and as we kind of hit on the two different things, cursing, I just can't believe it's commonplace, but our tongues. They can be life building or they can be life killing. And it's one of those things that as parents we've been blessed with the opportunity to sit there and raise our kids and build them up.

God has entrusted us with our kids to be able to build them up, and I just feel all too often, even me and my own parenting journey as a young dad there's a lot of things I wish I could go back and take back, there's a lot of things I've said over the years that were, negative things that tore my kids down rather than build them up.

Things that tore my wife down rather than build her up. And it's something that we've learned from. And then I think as we move forward, in the world that, in which we live in today, I think it's important to sit there and have these standards. Like Zoe talks about that not only do we sit there and put the standards in front for them to live by, but more importantly it's standards that we live by and we model as parents.

It's so easy for my wife and I, especially when we're tired. Like right now, we're 15 hours into our day, could easily sit there and have stuff come out that we're just tired and it, and something negative slips up. But it's one of those things that we have tried to sit here and make a priority is the way in which we talk and the way in which we interact with our kids and with each other in front of the kids.

That way they're seeing it modeled properly and correctly in terms of what it looks like to do, put up pushups, uh, put up in front of the kids.

I'm gonna finish with the Bible verse real quick, "the tongue can bring death or life. Those who love to talk will reap the consequences." Think about that, and that's it from Proverbs 18:21. Those who love to talk will reap the consequences. Okay? Are the consequences that come outta your mouth that come because of your mouth? Are they gonna be positive consequences or negative consequences?

The next time you wanna sit there and tear someone down, there's gonna be negative consequences that come. That the Bible sits there and it tells us that very, very clearly. So I just encourage you as a parent, as a spouse, as an employee, as a father, son, mother, daughter, whatever you might be, that you sit there and you choose your words wisely because what you say can build people up and can tear 'em down just as evenly. And I just challenge you. I know it's something that we're working on in our house.

I'm gonna shift gears here. I sit here and talk about something that our daughter Zoe struggles with, which is her tongue. At the same time. She's a kid that we're very proud of.

I want to give her a chance to sit here and talk about her testimony cool thing is back in the fall, she had the opportunities, that field of faith to give her testimony in front of a couple hundred people. I think as she gave her testimony, think of that person in front of a microphone who's a little nervous cuz there are a couple hundred people sitting there looking at you.

On top of that, she couldn't hear herself just the way the sound system worked. And she has a really great message. And think of Forrest Gump at the very end of his speech and in Washington DC saying, and that's all I had to say about that. And people are like, okay, I heard what you had to say, but it was a little shaky,

due to the microphone, due your nerves. And so I just wanna give you a chance right now to do two things. A I want you to give your testimony and then I want you to sit there and close us. The word of prayer based on the tongue and everything else that we're going through, and just growth in life.

Zoe: So my testimony that I shared at Fields of Faith reflected really just what I was feeling at a certain point in my life and things that I just thought, and things that I would say that just reflected my feelings ultimately. So to start with, I've always been a Christian. That's how I was raised.

Obviously going to church, loving God, serving him, knowing him, that's just who my rock, who my rock was. But you know, those teenage years hit and you just kinda like question who you're supposed to be and where your identity's found and you might get lost, whether it's in the social life with people or fitting in to not fit in and really just trying to live up to God's standards or your parents' standards at the same time.

And it was just really hard. and you know, my brother was listening to a certain kind of music that he was into. MGK and Jayden, both rock music and they would just talk about their feelings and how they thought, like, the world sucks, people suck. There's no hope. Just like life is gonna be sad and it's gonna throw curves and you are allowed to sit there and be depressed about it.

And so I just fell into that zone, listening through music, letting them feed me their lies. And in reality, I was just like blinded so much by it, just realizing that I was okay to sit like that, which it wasn't, but I didn't realize that till I went to a concert with my brother. I went to Jayden's concert and the whole time he was just talking about his life, how he was depressed, how he just had so many failures and people have failed him.

And just like his life, he was drowning. All these people, there were so many people there, and they were just like bowing to him saying, Jayden, you saved my life, or, thank you Jayden. You were the reason. Like, I'm, I'm good now. I can relate to you. And I realize all of a sudden like, wait, I'm with these people, but I don't think this way.

Jayden's not my savior. I know who my savior is. I know where my rock is. I know where I'm found. And it definitely wasn't there. And so I realized like after the moment, like I was so happy to know. I knew the light and I knew I had that light and I could share that light, and I didn't have to continue living in such a hole.

So I was just really grateful in that moment that I could have that turnaround, um, with the switch flip. .

Bruce: That is awesome. And I think as she just said, you know, it's so easy to get caught up in what the rest of the kids or your peers are doing compared to doing what God wants you to do. I think it's easy to get, uh, Hey, guess what?

I don't wanna stick out. And for you to have that moment where you realize like, Hey, guess what? Just because the crowd thinks or says something like the music that they're talking about or that she talked about. Just because all these people, like the lyrics that are being spoken about doesn't mean I have to follow those lyrics or take those lyrics as gospel.

Just because people are acting a certain way, because that's the popular thing to do, I don't need to sit there and act that way. And I just wanna actually wanna take a verse real quick or a couple verses from Acts chapter five and here's the reality. As a kid, if you go against the grain, especially as a high school kid, people are gonna probably look at you a little funny.

And the reality is, if you go against the grain, you might get made fun of. And the reality is, if you go against the grain, look at Jesus. Perfect human being was on earth with 33 years, went against the grain and he ended up getting hung on a tree. And so in Acts chapter 5 verse 41, it says, "the apostles left the high cancel rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. "

Doesn't sound all that awesome, but the reality is, guess what? I'll sit there and take the suffering of being a Christian. These people, these apostles sat there and were stoked to sit there that they were worthy enough to be counted by God to be called worthy to suffer disgrace from the name of Jesus.

I just sit there and challenge, high school kids. I challenge parents. I challenge whoever it might be in society today, especially with our tongues. Sit there and do what's worthy to sit there to. Like I said, to be worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. And so we're gonna sit here and end the word prayer.

Zoe. Go ahead Zoe. You can sit here and, and close us in order prayer before we do so, you can go to our website, what is it? growingpaynes.org

Kaila: And it's all gonna be linked down on the show notes, so make sure you check those out. It'll have the scripture references and then it will have our email and ways to connect with us.

Bruce: Go ahead Zoe.

Zoe: Dear Lord God, I just thank you for bringing us here today to spread this message about the tongue. Lord God, I pray that we can realize just really how powerful its impact is not only for us, but the people around us and how it just truly reflects our heart. Lord God, I pray that you can just open our eyes, those little things that we might be saying that really aren't what we should be saying, Lord God.

And I pray that we can all just have that little eye-opener. Lord, I pray that we can read the Bible and really feel ourselves with your words and not our own. And I pray that we can have patience, Lord God, and self-control to control ourselves in the midst of those pieces, like of anger, Lord God, whatever may happen.

Just pray that we fill ourselves up with your words so that we feel better and we can really just attribute to you, Lord God. I pray that we have a great risk of our week and weekend, Lord God, that we can rest up. And I just pray for schools and teachers and students, Lord God, that as we are in a time like this, that we don't just all recognize and conform to cursing, Lord God, cuz it isn't right.

I pray that we truly just make a change little by little. Um, I pray that we can just unite together, Lord God in your words. Amen.

Kaila: Amen.

Bruce: Amen.