Time and time again, the Psalmist bore his heart to the Lord in tearful desperation, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me” (Psalm 13:1-2)?

A fool gives full vent to his spirit,  but a wise man quietly holds it back.

One of the most popular film franchises of the last decade is The Purge. Without recommending these movies, their  foundational premise is interesting, revealing, and worthy of our consideration. The Purge is set in a future America. Crime and unemployment have all but vanished. The nation is enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity because one day each year, citizens are allowed to “purge.” During this 12 hour window,  all crime, including murder, is legal and the people take to the streets to release the suppressed evil they carry inside. And so the nation is engulfed in the flames of violent chaos by which the survivors believe their souls cleansed and their nation reborn.

Though none of us would approve of such a barbarism, the same misunderstanding of human nature and indwelling sin is at the root of what we call venting. Venting is vocalizing negative emotions, saying everything you feel, raw and unfiltered, to a trusted friend or loved one. What follows is usually a slanderous, vulgar, selfpitying, selfrighteous, and destructive tirade of toxic words that come belching up from the vile depths of our sinful hearts. When we’ve emptied our magazine and are all out of word bullets, we usually say to the victim of our venting something like, “Thanks I just needed to vent… I feel better now.” But do you? Do you really feel better? Have you ever felt closer to God through venting? 

Solomon said, “A fool gives full vent to his spirit…” It’s downright dumb to think that good will come from unrestrained speech. Why? Because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34), or according to the NSV (Neil Stewart Version), “the mouth is the heart’s exhaust pipe.”

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