Have you ever noticed that during a fight the last the you care about is what is coming out of your mouth? You just spew off whatever comes to mind, whatever your brain finds in the moment of 'I just want to hurt you'. And when you see that you have successfully hurt that person you might cheer, you might feel grief, you might feel nothing. Now, I am not going to tell you what you should or should not do during that time, I am here to talk about the power of our words.
How often do you think before you speak?
When I am excited? Rarely. When I am upset? Not usually. When I am by myself? I speak very freely to myself. When I am around people that I do not know? Usually, I just do not speak. What about you?
In the Bible it says "Life and death are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18:21). Have you ever stopped to think what that really means? James 3 talks all about the tongue, and therefore, the words we speak. In verses 8- 10, But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not be this way. How awful! I talk about the people that frustrate me or that make me want to scream and I can say awful things and then I turn around and say God, You are good. Bless Your holy name! Why? How? It is disgusting when you think about it.
When you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, what do you say? What is your first reaction? Is it, "hello, gorgeous" or is it more along the lines of "please, tell me I do not really look this way"? What you say about yourself has power. I rarely look at myself in the mirror first thing in the morning. My first thing is to get caffeine, but when I do make it to the mirror, often my reaction is "God, You did a great job. (Although, I still have freckles.)" I think a lot of that confidence has come from DTS and learning the truth about myself. Having this outlook about myself though, changes everything I say about myself. Have no doubt, some days I look at myself and I think God messed up on more than just my freckles, but then I come back to the truth. And I speak it. I write it.
Having put in my hours in front of people from public speaking to theatre performances, I know what it means to have to look and act a certain way. I know what it means to have your annunciation critiqued and hammered on. Despite all of that, I enjoyed the stage and I learned many tricks backstage.
For example, if I was backstage saying over and over again, "I am going to be horrible", I usually was. Not because of nerves, no certainly not. My words about how horrible or horrendous I would be affected my atmosphere. My words sat in the atmosphere and affected everything- my performance, my attitude, and my belief in myself. On the other hand, right before a speech, if all I kept saying to myself, "You are going to be the best one out there. The judges/professor/etc are not going to know what hit them."it was true. Even if I stumbled over the words, even I forgot my attention getter (which I always memorized), even if I fell on my way up to the stage, my confidence in myself was so high that it did not matter. I delivered the best speech time after time. Often, a perfect score or just a mark or two below. Was it because I practiced a lot beforehand and rehearsed and rehearsed- no! Do not do as I did, but I rarely practiced a speech. More often than not, I improved and ad libbed. The words that I said to myself, about myself...
I had a friend tell me that they could never speak to a group in a public setting the way that I did/do. I simply looked at him and thought 'yeah, with that attitude and those words you will not. You cannot.' What I said however, I do not remember. Probably a simple, yes you will. Want to know something- if you watch closely, before and after I step foot onto the stage, I am so nervous I am shaking. And I am telling myself, "You are going to knock their socks off".
As a person who likes to write a lot, I find that I have to be careful about what I write and how I write what I do write. Not going to lie, some days are harder than others and I choose to write about a fight or altercation I had with someone. And I keep that "record of wrong" that true, perfect love does not keep....
All I am trying to say is this, take time to think about the power of your words. Think about your jokes- are they funny or do they just hurt and cause damage? Is the advice you give people allowing light and life or is it destroying and causing death?
Think before you speak.
Think about a bully. Are you being a verbal bully? Be a bully of love. Shower people with it. Overwhelm people with it.
Oh, a cardinal! Beautiful.
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