Watch Your Words
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Words are the currency of life. They can make investments, they can make withdrawals. They can make you a success or take everything you have. They can be used for good or bad, even life and death according to this scripture. Who audits your words? What do you say and what are the effects of your statements? Do you intentionally use words, designing and cultivating your talk or does your mouth create a world that you find yourself in the middle of? The way we talk affects our life. It will affect your business, the people you work with and even your own mood.
Words Frame the World
Words have creative power. God used His word to create:
Through faith we understand that the world was made by the Word of God. Things we see were made from what could not be seen. Hebrews 11:3 NLV
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Hebrews 11:3
That’s a big concept! God’s words framed the world that we live in. It shows us how creative and powerful words can be. To a great extent the world that you live and experience is a result of the words that you speak out over your life.
“Frame” is an interesting choice of words, two ways that this word is used in language that can help give us a picture of the power of words. Firstly, in my industry framing is what we refer to when we start to construct the structure that will hold everything together. Secondly a frame is what we use to present a picture – We contain what we see in a frame. What if your picture of life is contained by how you frame it?
In light of this thought, do you need to change the way you speak about your marriage, your co-workers or clients?
Application Exercise
As an application I want to encourage you to take 5 mins and saturate your thoughts with what the book of proverbs has to say about how we use our words. Wisdom like this can help us to realign our speech to God’s way:
The mouth of the godly person gives wise advice, but the tongue that deceives will be cut off
The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly.
Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble.