Keep It Short...

Ephesians 5 relates to us a prescription for the words we speak, and how they are spoken:
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children ; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.  Verse 4 gives some powerful examples: 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.   If our hearts are full of thanksgiving, it will be reflected in the words we communicate - Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.   When we are tempted to engage in complaining, or gossip, or harsh words, or other forms of speaking that are not appropriate for a believer in Christ, we can release that power of thanksgiving that is addressed in the final words of verse 4.   God's Word, activated by the Holy Spirit, can shape our words and help us to train our tongues to speak words that bring life, hope, and healing.   If we're not so quick to speak, weighing our words carefully, and as we rely on God to give us the proper attitude in our communication, then we can bring glory to God in how we relate to others.

Proverbs 10 offers us some time-honored effective principles, challenging us to control our tongues:
19 When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable , But he who restrains his lips is wise. 20 The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver, The heart of the wicked is worth little. 21 The lips of the righteous feed many, But fools die for lack of understanding.   There was an important date yesterday - the 20th anniversary of the...text message!! 
It's reported on Mashable.com that the first SMS was sent in 1992 by Neil Papworth. He sent the message “Merry Christmas” from his personal computer to his friend Richard Jarvis' Orbitel 901 handset over the Vodafone GSM network.

The first commercial text message was sent a year later, in 1993, and after a relatively slow start is now one of the most popular ways for people to communicate with one another.

The text message has changed the way that many people, especially teens and young adults, communicate.   We recognize some would replace the face-to-face or telephone communication with sending a brief text, and the behavior could be contagious:

According to a new study conducted by the University of Michigan, people are more likely to pull out their phone when someone around them does the same.

In the study, researchers watched groups of students, documenting their cellphone use every 10 seconds. Overall, students were on their phones 24% of the time they spent with a friend, and were 39.5% more likely to use their phone when the person they were sitting with had done so in the previous 10-second interval.

And, you certainly don't want to text while driving - it's dangerous, and in many areas, against the law.

But, there are advantages to the text message:  it's real-time communication that saves you from having to play phone tag, and enables you to share and receive information without getting involved in a potential lengthy conversation.   And, you do well to keep it short - many services have a character limit to the text messages.   And, of course, Twitter, which is another way to send short burst of information, has that infamous 140-character limit.

So, as we think about text messages today, we can also think on a broader scale - text messaging can force us to sometimes weigh our words - and even in the verbal realm or written communication, such as e-mail or even letters, we would do well to think before we speak or write.   And, if you preface your remarks with "I shouldn't say this, but..." or follow some comments with, "well, I shouldn't have said that", perhaps you have not been using your words wisely.    So, we would do well to weigh our words and consider the potential effect of what we say, that could fall outside the realm of what would fall within Scriptural acceptability.

Restrictions on what we say, how we say it, and the way it is spoken can be so helpful to us as we seek to exhibit the character of Christ.   The Holy Spirit can change our hearts and our attitudes, which can affect the words we speak.