Cheap Words, Costly Life

Joy Davidman, an American poet, writer, a radical communist, and an atheist declared: “One sanctimonious hypocrite makes a hundred unbelievers”.

Joy Davidman knew intimately this dictum she had pronounced because, later on in life, she converted to the Christian faith when she married the famed Oxford don, C.S. Lewis as her second husband.

At the risk of being redundant, Davidman intentionally employed using an adjective which means the same as the noun-subject to highlight the ill-effect of fakery.

Davidman’s dictum applies in myriad situations that are beyond a life of faith. It can be applied in politics, economics, medicine, health care, social services, education, the judiciary, the military, business, industry, commerce, government, unionism, and law and order, just to name a few.

As one who embraces the loving grace that God has bestowed upon my life through His Son, Jesus Christ, I often wonder how many hundreds of thousands of unbelievers I have made through the way I live my life all these years.

To those who watch on, I may be the only word of God that they ever read. I may be the only glimmer of reflection of God’s light they ever see.

Approached from a round-about way in encouraging us to live in a lifestyle which we profess to live is St. Francis of Assisi’s famous advice: “Go and preach the Gospel to the world by all means. Use words only if necessary.”

As Paul says in one of his letters, we are living epistles for all to read.

"You yourselves are our letters, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You know that you are a letter from Christ... written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." 2 Corinthians 3 : 3

Lifestyle and personal integrity speak louder than words. They shout out more loudly than a preachment from a pulpit.

Paul urges us to live "in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left..." 2 Corinthians 6 : 7

Let me live my life as God has intended for me so I may not do an injustice to His Kingdom's cause on earth.