CHAPTER 5
Creating an Effective Emotional Word Picture
WHEN IT COMES to cooking, some people act as if they are above reading recipes or cooking instructions. I hate to admit it, but I (John) fall into that category. Basically, I feel that following a recipe is a sign of weakness.
In my few adventures in the kitchen, I’ve turned three-alarm chili into a 23-alarm fireball, causing my wife and daughters to sprint to the sink and guzzle gallons of water. I’ve substituted cream of tartar for baking powder because “they looked the same to me!” I’ve even used peanut butter to hold a meat loaf together.
Despite my culinary creativity, most of my exploits have caused little damage other than heartburn and “pan burn.” But years ago, I nearly destroyed my entire apartment by ignoring a recipe.
It was Thanksgiving break, and my college roommates and I were spending the holiday in our apartment. Since we weren’t going to be with our families, we invited a bunch of friends to join us for a home-cooked Thanksgiving feast.
As the day neared, we made up a shopping list, bought out the local grocery store, and began preparing for our sumptuous meal. From the beginning, I should have known we were in big trouble when my roommate couldn’t figure out how to use the electric can opener. But the damage he inflicted on the can was a minor issue compared to what I did to the turkey.
Consider the facts. I knew I had an IQ of at least my age. (My wrestling coach told me that repeatedly.) At any rate, I knew I was more intelligent than the turkey I was supposed to cook. So why waste time reading directions on how to prepare it?
I had picked a mammoth bird that looked more like a small ostrich than a large turkey. As I removed the wrapper, I noticed a bag full of disgusting things shoved clear up inside the cavity. I debated whether to remove it, but I figured the butcher put it there for flavoring. So, I left it in.
My next step was to “dress” the carcass. I had seen my mother rub peanut oil over turkeys to give them that golden-brown look. So, naturally, I planned to do the same with my masterpiece. However, the closest thing I could find in our apartment was 3-in-1 oil. I was smart enough not to use that. There wasn’t enough left in the can anyway.
So, rather than run back to the store, I just wrapped a sheet of aluminum foil around the bottom of the bird and proceeded to the oven, which I had remembered to preheat. In fact, I’d turned the thermostat to “torch” nearly an hour before to make sure it was hot enough.
My next in a long line of mistakes was to set “Turkey Kong” directly onto the metal rack in the oven. No baking pan. No cookie sheet. Nothing to catch the fat and grease. Just a paper-thin layer of foil separating an otherwise-naked, 24-pound bird from the red-hot coils inches below.
While I’d already done enough to lead to disaster, my most catastrophic error was deciding I had plenty of time to pick up a few friends who were coming to our holiday feast. I walked outside with a jaunty step, filled with pride that I could rescue two Thanksgiving orphans from cafeteria food. I nearly broke my arm patting myself on the back.
Making the leisurely, 25-minute drive to their house without incident, I spent the return trip bragging to my captive audience about the great meal awaiting them. But rounding the corner for the final approach to our “banquet hall,” I spotted the flashing red lights of several fire trucks at our apartment complex.
“Great!” I said. “A little drama! Let’s go see what idiot burned down his apartment!”
As I soon discovered, the idiot was me. Black smoke was belching from the door of our apartment, which the firemen had smashed into toothpicks with axes. As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, they dragged out what was left of my charred, smoldering turkey and hosed it off on the grass!
Swallowing my pride, I drove my roommates and our invited guests to a local cafeteria for Thanksgiving dinner. And instead of eating turkey for leftovers, I ate crow for months.
That Thanksgiving was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. But it illustrates an important point: We don’t want your first attempt at using word pictures to go up in flames. We know that some of you are so excited to use this communication method that you’re ready to “throw the turkey into the oven” without reading the instructions. To avoid having to repaint your relationships after fire and smoke damage, however, you’d be wise to follow each step below.
The Next-Best Thing
We’d love to sit at your kitchen table, join you for coffee, and help you create a word picture. But until that day happens, this book —and perhaps the help you’ll find at www.encouragingwords.com —is the next-best thing. Over the next few chapters, we will show you, step by step, how to tailor-make one to fit your needs. We’ll do this by examining one of the most life-changing stories in history —the very one that generated the idea for this book.
Seven Steps to Creating Emotional Word Pictures
1. Establish a Clear Purpose.
To create effective word pictures, you must begin with an important preparatory step: deciding how you want to enrich your relationship. Do you want your words to:
- a. Clarify thoughts and feelings?
- b. Move you to a deeper level of intimacy?
- c. Praise or encourage someone?
- d. Lovingly correct someone?
Having a clear purpose in mind is like making a grocery list before you go shopping. The list helps guarantee you’ll come home with what you need. In other words, shooting a gun without first aiming may work in Hollywood, but in real life you’ll undoubtedly miss the target.
Take a moment right now and think about an important point you want to communicate with someone. Which of the four reasons —or a different one —will best help you deliver your message? To illustrate the need to have a clear purpose in mind, let’s take a close look at that life-changing story we mentioned earlier.
SOLVING A KING-SIZED PROBLEM WITH A WORD PICTURE
How would you like to be a royal adviser who was called upon to confront a warrior king —particularly one who had recently tried to cover up both an illicit affair and committing first-degree murder? Today, people who leak stories like that get rewarded with book and film contracts. However, in this adviser’s day, exposing the truth was more likely to get your neck broken! No word picture we know of better demonstrates the power to change a person’s heart than the story of this ancient king.[33]
There once was a young shepherd named David who got singled out to be a future king.[34] As a tender of flocks, he sometimes had to drive off wild animals and even lay his life on the line to save one of his sheep. But those years of leading a flock helped to develop many of the skills he later needed to lead a mighty nation.
When David finally ascended to the throne, he was known throughout the world as a fearless warrior who led his armies in countless victories.[35] He maintained the heart of a shepherd in the early years of his reign, but as his fame increased, he began walking on the dangerous edge of power. Anything he wanted was within his grasp.[36]
During this time, when his shepherd’s heart had grown cold, he walked onto the roof of his palace one day and gazed across the city at all he controlled, all he commanded. As the sun set and a refreshing breeze drifted down from the surrounding mountains, his eyes suddenly caught a reflection from a rooftop below. It was the last rays of sunlight, shimmering off a pool of water. Looking closer, he realized the reflection came as the water was stirred by a woman bathing.
Moving to a better vantage point, he scrutinized the beautiful woman. His pulse grew quicker; his breath, shorter. Then, his lust having devised a plan, he dispatched his guards to bring the woman to the palace. Soon enough, David learned that this striking woman, named Bathsheba, was the wife of one of his army officers in the war then being fought by his nation.
However, that didn’t deter David. His mind was not on a faraway battlefield, but on a conquest closer at hand. He had her brought into his private chambers for a night of forbidden passion.
The next morning, the evening’s entertainment was sent back home. There is every indication the king wanted their encounter to be a one-night stand —an act he could sweep under the carpet of his cold conscience. But several weeks later, the young woman sent a private message to the king: She was pregnant with his child.
In his early years, King David had been noted as an upright man. But by this time, his one error seemed to justify another. Perhaps he feared his grip on power would be loosened if people caught wind of the scandal. All we know is that instead of acknowledging what happened, his darkened heart devised another cunning plan.
He would send for the woman’s husband, who was away fighting, and bring him home on leave as a decorated hero. David was sure this soldier, like any average, red-blooded serviceman who’d been away from his beautiful wife for months, would fill his first night home with romance.
But Bathsheba’s husband was several cuts above average. Since the men he commanded were still on the battle lines, far from their wives and families, he refused the privileges of marriage.
The king was stunned that the man’s loyalty to his troops was more powerful than his passions. His mind quickly scrambled for a second plan, and a crude idea struck him. He invited the man to the palace, got him drunk, and then sent him home.
Yet once again, the man refused to go inside. Knowing the wine would weaken his resolve, he slept on the steps of his house. Unbeknownst to him, this put him in as much danger as being on the front lines of war. In fact, by spending another evening apart from his wife, he signed his own death warrant.
Several weeks had passed since Bathsheba first announced her pregnancy, and it took a few more to get her husband back from the battle. As a woman with a shapely figure, she couldn’t keep the secret much longer. Increasingly desperate, David stooped the lowest when he grasped an evil plan that couldn’t fail.
Through a top-secret dispatch, he sent her husband back to the front lines and into the thick of the battle. Then, following the king’s specific instructions, the commanding general pulled back all his supporting troops to leave the soldier alone in the face of the enemy.
The plan worked flawlessly. With no protection on his flank and no one to stand with him, the man battled bravely but futilely. Like a wounded stag encircled by starving wolves, he was slaughtered in the open, alone.
With Bathsheba’s husband out of the way, the king brought his one-time lover into the palace as his new wife. Overnight, a thin veneer of legitimacy covered the dark secret. In time, David’s fears of being found out relaxed. He slept much easier, knowing there had been additional casualties on the front and that many of the widows had also remarried. He desperately hoped the general who executed his evil sentence would guard the secret with his life. However, the truth somehow leaked out.
WHAT IF YOU WERE THE ONE WHO HAD TO CONFRONT THE KING?
While King David’s conscience had been in hiding, a court adviser named Nathan received a divine charge. He was to confront David with an emotional word picture that would change the course of a kingdom and echo through the ages.
“Your Majesty,” Nathan began, bowing low, “a serious problem in the kingdom has just come to my attention.”
After listening to dozens of everyday reports from other advisers, David suddenly snapped awake. Like most kings, he didn’t appreciate surprises —particularly serious ones affecting his kingdom.
“Sir, in your kingdom is a very poor family, who with all their resources could purchase only one suckling lamb,” he began, weighing each word for its emotional impact. “And as this animal grew, the children took over the chores of feeding and brushing it.
“The lamb became a special pet and an important part of the household,” he continued. “In fact, they were so attached to it that they gave it the run of the house. At night, when the winds blew, it even jumped onto the children’s beds and helped keep them warm.
“In this poor family, the father farms land owned by a wealthy rancher,” he said. “Recently, late in the afternoon, unexpected guests arrived at the rich man’s house. A customary feast was in order. Yet the herdsmen were away with the flocks, and the only fresh meat at hand was one of the aging goats kept for her milk —far too tough a meal for the important guests.
“That’s when the landowner looked down the hill and saw two children playing with a beautiful, plump lamb,” the adviser said, pausing to clear his throat.
“Well, go on,” the king replied impatiently. “Finish your story.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, maintaining his voice at its deliberate pace. “As I was saying, the rich man saw the animal, and an idea came to him. He could butcher the lamb and not have to send a servant all the way to his own flocks. And that’s exactly what he did. The lamb was slaughtered and prepared for his guests, without any thought given to the children or their parents.”
Color rushed to the king’s face, and his eyes flashed with rage. His feelings brought back memories, which in turn sparked deeper feelings. He, too, had raised lambs from birth, sheltered them from harm, loved them as pets, and felt heartbroken if anything happened to them.
“As you know, Your Majesty, children may have the heart for battle, but they are no match for grown men. With their father away tending his fields, their cries for help went unheard. And the little boy, clinging desperately to the lamb, was slapped away like a fly.
“That night, the little children huddled in their beds, weeping to hear the music and laughter from the rancher’s house above. Their hearts broke to think of other people’s appetites being satisfied by the pet which —”
“That’s enough!” the king shouted. “Say no more!” He jumped to his feet, livid with anger. “That man deserves death! I tell you, today he is to make restitution to that family. He is to pay them back fourfold what they lost. I want four of his best lambs to be chosen from his flocks, and I want them taken to that family —immediately,” he commanded, hammering out the words.
“And then,” he said, with a glint in his eyes that reflected the warrior’s heart within, “I want that man brought before me this very afternoon!”
The large throne room had the clear acoustics of a Gothic church. When the king’s angry words ceased reverberating from the walls, a heavy silence fell upon the room. Ears were poised with anticipation. Though the adviser never spoke above a whisper, the impact of his words crashed through the room like peals of thunder.
“Your Majesty . . . you are that man! The little lamb you took was another man’s wife!”
The story hit the king so forcefully and unexpectedly that Scripture tells us he was driven to his knees and tore his robes. His heart, encased by adultery and murder in steel-like silence, now lay shattered by the blow of one emotional word picture. For the first time, he was forced to face the evil he had done, forced to feel some of the emotional trauma he had caused others.[37]
Reading this word picture and then talking about it is what led the two of us to the idea for this book. All through the Scriptures (you’ll come to a whole chapter about it), you’ll see word pictures used.
You may not have to face an angry king anytime soon, but you’re probably aware of someone with whom you need to talk. Like Nathan, you may need to confront a problem in a relationship. Correction may not be the easiest use of word pictures, and it often takes the most courage. But when done in love to change a destructive practice or situation, it is frequently one of the most important. On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking for more clarity in your communication or greater intimacy in your marriage. Maybe you’re searching for just the right words of love and encouragement for your children.
Whether your relationships need a major overhaul or you simply want to add a turbocharger to your communication, the solution is near at hand. Start with a clear purpose —praise, correction, encouragement, clarity, or whatever. Then keep in mind six more ways to help your word picture be on track, and maybe even make history in your home.