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He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. -Mark 7:37 (NIV)

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue should for joy. -Isaiah 35:5-6 (NIV)

God has a way of exposing truths and making previously muted things and people come alive and speak. Jesus is the truth, is He not?

The passive aggressive deaf mute

Like many nice guys, I’d let injustices, including those against me, slide, and bottle up the resentment and frustration. Being a flawed container that can only hold so much, I’d eventually overflow with these negative feelings, and they’d leak out through me being unpleasant in other ways.

Maybe I’d exclude or emotionally distance myself from a person when I didn’t like how they behaved. Or, once that last straw was laid on my back, I’d raise my voice over something unrelated. And people wouldn’t know why I was acting that way.

In doing so, I would have deafened my ears to those I wanted to protect myself from.

When it comes down to it, nice people are the ones who are unintentionally wronging themselves and others in their own way. By not speaking up, others don’t know how they truly think or feel. And nice people wrong themselves by knowing inside they should speak up, but deny themselves that for various reasons and justifications. That cycle goes on and on.

Jesus heals all

But Jesus, being the truth, lived and walked in truth. He did not mince words. He did not bottle things up and get people back in passive aggression. No, he was truthful and transparent, and we can do the same.

But Jesus didn’t just model how to speak and listen, but He also healed. In the book of Mark, He did just that for a deaf and mute man (Mark 7:32-37). He can do the same healing work in us, repairing us from within, and then externally by healing our relationships through how we communicate with others.

Jesus listened and spoke in truth when He walked this earth. If we let Him perform His work in us, we can work toward modeling our walk–and talk–after His more closely every day. And just watch how His touch radiates outward from us, and to others!