Annoying Christian Phrases

There's some phrases making the rounds these days that I wish would just go away. In no particular order, my top five include:

"Don't go there" - What does this really mean anyway? I guess I know what the intent is but if I've already gone there how can I not go there? Shouldn't it be "stop going there" or "turn around and come back from there?"  I'd just like to tell people where they can go when I hear them say "don't go there." (Oops...not very Christian of me, sorry!)

"Just so you know" - Is that just so I know as opposed to anyone else knowing or do you want me to know because everyone else already knows or are you worried that if you tell me I won't really know what you told me unless you tell me you just told me? I don't know.

"Just saying" - If you just said it why do you have to tell us you just said it, unless what you said was so trivial that you have to remind us you just said it... but, if what you just said is so trivial, why did you have to say it in the first place? 

"I got nothin" - Usually an expression signifying they don't know what to say, they've drawn a blank. I actually have been guilty of using this one, because it happens to me quite a bit, but it still drives me crazy even to hear myself say it.  Why state the obvious? A wise old saying goes "it's better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt."  "I got nothin" pretty conclusively removes all doubt. 

"I know! Right?" - This has got to be the one that drives me the craziest. It's usually used at the end of a statement, not a question. It's almost like the person wants to agree with you but is not confident enough to do it themselves so they have to ask you for permission.

Friend one: "Wearing black is so-o-o yesterday."
Friend two: "I know! Right!?"

Open mouth, insert finger.

People in our secular culture aren't the only ones guilty of soiling the language with annoying phrases. We Christians hold our own just fine thank you. In fact, I'm guessing there a quite a few catch phrases we Christians use that drive our God crazy.

I can think of a number of top candidates:

Annoying Christian Phrase # 1: "Bless her heart"  

An ingenious way to disguise a back door insult as a spiritual sounding compliment. It's a way to make subtly make fun of a person while sounding really Godly in the process.

"Did you see what so and so did at church last week! Bless her heart?"

"She's really is naive isn't she, bless her heart."

"He's as homely as an ox, bless his heart."

Somehow I don't think this is what God had in mind when He told us to "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers." (Eph. 4:29)

Annoying Christian Phrases # 2:  "It must be a sign."

Okay, try to follow the logic here:

Friend 1: "My wife made waffle fries for dinner on Monday. Then Tuesday she put potato chips in my lunch sack for work. Tonight she made mash potatoes. It must be a sign. She's telling me I need to iron my shirts better for work.

Friend 2: "Huh??  I Don't get it."  

Friend 1: "You know...potatoes...more starch in the diet...get it?"  

Friend 2:  "Sorry...still don't get it."  

Friend 1: "(Sigh) More starch in diet...more starch in on my shirt when I iron.  It's a pretty obvious sign...don't you think?"

Friend 2: "Errr...sure..."

Ludicrous right? 

We would never expect to have any meaningful communication with our spouse this way so why do some think that this is how our loving God would choose to communicate with His people?"

Yet how many well meaning Christians steer themselves through their Christian walk taking cues from obscure coincidences, making life decisions based on information about as reliable as reading tea leaves.

In Luke 11 tells us "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened...:

Who needs to waste time looking for obscure signs when God says the answer is there for the asking? Beats reading tea leaves in my book.

Annoying Christian Phrase # 3: "The Lord put it on my heart"

This phrase is awesome! You can use it to justify just about anything. Your friends can tell you it's a bad decision. Your parents might recommend against it. Your Pastor might question your judgment. God's Word could even condemn it. But utter the magic phrase, "The Lord put it on my heart" and suddenly whatever decision you've made takes on the air of the sacred, as if God Himself reached down and tugged on your heart strings. 

You: "I'm leaving my spouse and children to do missionary work in India." 

Concerned other: "Huh? Have you been drinking?"

You: "No, you have to understand that the Lord has put it on my heart."

Concerned other: "Well, then. That's of course what you need to do. Sorry I questioned you."

Hebrews 1 tells us that "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..."

Note the words "has spoken." Not, "is speaking." Not "whispers quietly in your ear while you're sleeping." "Has spoken" in the pages of your Bible.

Hebrews 4 tells us "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." 

If some Christians spent half as much time seeking answers in the Word of God as they do trying to divine His will from their emotions, the vague voices inside their head or whatever it is tugging at their heart strings, there decision making ability would be on much firmer ground. 

Annoying Christian Phrase # 4: "It's a God job."

The intended translation of this phrase is one of two things: 

1) There is nothing anyone humanly can do to help so God's going to have to take care of it, or... 

2) I don't have the time, resources, or inclination to help my brother or sister in this situation, so it's all Yours God. 

The first meaning states what is annoyingly obvious. After all, when it comes down to it, isn't everything pretty much a God job? When God hears this He must think to Himself..."Really?? You're just now getting the fact that I'm in charge?!  Hello..."

The second meaning is a bit more presumptuous. Who are we to think we can just willy-nilly pass the baton to Him when and if we decide we're done with it? Who are we to think we have the baton in the first place? 

Galatians 6:2 instructs Christians to "Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 

God doesn't give us Christians the luxury of determining when we're done showing love to our brother. After all, aren't we the vehicle through which He expresses His love? Last I checked I Corinthians 13, it still reads "His love never fails." If it truly is a God job, then you and I have to be willing to be the tools He works through to get it done, whatever it takes, as long as it takes.

Whew! It felt good to get that off my chest.

Just so you know... I suspect that right up till the time Jesus returns, His people, bless their hearts, will continue to come up with trite, meaningless and wholly un-biblical phrases that will drive us, and probably God as well, just a bit crazy. We're pretty helpless to stop it so I guess, in the end, that too is a God job.... Just saying...

Are there any Christian phrases that drive you crazy?