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Proverbs 18:21 teaches us that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Our words have a tremendous ability to heal and bring peace or to destroy and hurt others. We also find in Matthew 12:34–35 Jesus reminds us that the words we speak are actually the overflow of our hearts.
I have five amazingly talented, gifted, beautiful grandchildren, I guess I’m a bit partial, then again, what Grandma or Grandpa wouldn’t be? We have three girls and two boys, the ages ranging from 12 to 7. The two boys are 7. Now mind you, I love them dearly; however when they are together, it seems like there’s an army of them…literally! They seem to multiply right before my eyes! I find it funny that the boys seem to emulate one another more so than the girls, maybe because of their ages, yet I’m not convinced, (girls do as well; however, we’ll leave that for another time of blogging.)
One thing for sure what one boy does the other will soon follow, repeat or even act out. I recently bought them some Lego’s. Soon after they opened their packages they began comparing each item, one was better, bigger, more pieces, and had more men. As we watched them interact you could sense the atmosphere changing and quickly a verbal argument broke out. Of course at this young age the worst word one could hear was, at least from our grand boys, was ”That’s stupid,” and I’m keeping the name confidential for the sake of privacy. :)
He quickly turned and looked at us, to see if we were going to react. He definitely had a look of ‘uh oh’ I’ve just said something that wasn’t nice. Immediately you could see the reaction on the other boy’s face. He, too, was surprised, hurt and then angry. Yet within a few minutes the offender said, "I’m sorry". He recognized he brought brokenness between the both of them. Even at the age of 7, they recognize that their words can harm one another and bring improper actions.
The power of our words can actually rescind one’s spirit. It could have been a whole lot worse; however, I was thankful for the tender-heartedness of our grandson to ask for forgiveness and yes the other grandson responded…. “I forgive you.” They hugged and played on.
We find in Ephesians 4: 29 that Paul warns us “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” Here Paul is emphasizing the positive over the negative. The Greek word translated “unwholesome” and means “rotten” or “foul.” It originally referred to rotten fruit and vegetables. Yet another blog for another day!
Although Paul was speaking to a mature church, we find that it’s not impossible to be equipped and empowered by what is good, acceptable by the power of our words... at any age, for that matter. How blessed are we when we use our tongue to lift up and encourage the people around us. Simple as that!!!
Prayer: Father continue to show us in your Word that our mouth would be a means of grace… a tool that would bring You glory and that the hearer will know that our words are covered with Your love. Help us to be reminded whose got their eyes on us that they would find we are able to control our actions, our words that may feel like it requires us to respond in a corrupt way. We recognize that the fight for purity of mouth starts in the heart… in that we should emulate the example of Jesus whose words were so filled with grace that the multitudes were even amazed. Amen!!
Have a wonderful weekend… and keep Him close to your heart.
Love,
Deb
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