words can build you up

My mind goes off in familiar place.  It is tied to our current series of “love your neighbor”, and it has to do with our words.  We have to be honest about the words that we use.

These can build people or tear them down.  Take a minute to think about how you use words.  Are you often pushing people down or pulling them up by the words you use in conversations, during conflict or just through the every day moments of life?

This is an important thought because we should be people or blessings.  Our words are important.

Proverbs 18:21  NASB

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.

One of the places that often reminds me of this is in the lyrics of a song.  It spells it out very well making us get honest.  The song is simply titled “Words”, and it is sung by Hawk Nelson.  Here is the beginning of the song.

They've made me feel like a prisoner

They've made me feel set free

They've made me feel like a criminal

Made me feel like a king

They've lifted my heart

To places I'd never been

And they've dragged me down

Back to where I began

Words can build you up

Words can break you down

Start a fire in your heart or

Put it out

Let my words be life

Let my words be truth

I don't wanna say a word

Unless it points the world back to You

Honest.  Sometimes my words inflict pain in others.  Sometimes my words are mirror to my mind and my heart, and that fact bothers me a great deal.  My desire is to give life and not death. 

In the song are some of those thoughts.  It says “made me feel like a prisoner” … have any of my conversations made someone feel that way?  I am grieved by that.  The song goes on to say “made me feel like a king”… I am blessed by that.

Oh how I want my words and my life to be a blessing in as many ways as possible.  If you know me, you know that is my heart, and when my heart if different, it causes me great pain.

Honest.  I caught myself.  This is something that I prayed for and saw coming.  Before the words came out I was grieved and hurting because of my thoughts.  It is when my mind gives way and the words come out that the worst seems to be happening, but I caught this one early.  They still hurt and caught me almost unaware.

In the coming minutes and hours the conversations turned positive.  I thought through that thought on being a king.  It is important that the people closest to me, my wife and children, are made to feel like kings and queens.  It is important that I see and seize the opportunity to speak in to the lives of the people I encounter so they too will feel like kings.

James 3:8-10  NASB

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 to be this way.

May we be found being a blessing through our actions as well as our words.