Your Words Have Power!

Picture the scene…. It’s a wet lunch break in school and teenage-me is sitting with a group of friends, pouring over the latest issue of whatever girl’s magazine is in favor. We flick through the pages, giving our verdicts on the images in front of us until, with one throwaway sentence, the die is cast:

“She’s got freckles so she can’t ever be beautiful.”

Thirty years later, I remember that moment like it was yesterday because in that moment I concluded that I could never be beautiful because, every spring and summer without fail, I’d have a face full of freckles.

Thirty years later and I’m not fifteen anymore, so I’ve learned that beauty is about so much more than what your face happens to look like. But it doesn’t change the impact those few words had on me for a very long time.

My sister would tell you a similar story, one that doesn’t paint me in a very favorable light at all because this time it’s me offering the judgment….

 I’m the eldest of six and she’s my younger sibling by 20 months. I have what I, as a kid, liked to describe as a cute little button nose. She has an elegant nose and one day I told her that her nose is bigger than my nose and she’s younger than me so that means she has a big nose!

What a thing to say! Yes, I cringe about it now, but at the time I probably took great delight in tormenting her. I don’t remember the conversation at all, I only remember her telling me about the conversation, because it’s one that has stuck with her for years.

“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” — Proverbs 18:21

Our words have power. Power to harm and power to build people up. Power to destroy and power to heal. Power to speak death and power to speak life. And if you enjoy using your words, you will eat the fruit of your words because it’s the natural order of seedtime and harvest: what you sow, you reap. 

None of this is news to you of course. It’s simply an invitation and a reminder.

It’s an invitation to be more intentional about the words you use (whether they be articulated verbally or not because your thought life is powerful too) both in speaking to yourself and the people around you.

And it’s a reminder that you cannot control anyone other than yourself, so there are going to be occasions when others speak words over you that are less than stellar. You can’t control the words someone chooses to speak but you can choose whether you’re going to receive those words or not.

(As an aside, you’re an adult and you can also choose who you do life with so, if the people around you aren’t speaking life into you, it might be time to re-evaluate those friendships—but that’s part of a bigger conversation for another time.)

I’ve often been told over the years that I “speak too much,” that I “don’t have to have a conversation with every person serving us at the checkout,” that I “could be quiet just once.” My reply? At least I’m consistent!

But seriously, there’s a reason God made me this way and, despite the conclusion one might jump to based on first impressions, I’m actually a very good listener. I’m brilliant and wonderful just the way I am, and God doesn’t need a do-over. 

And you’re brilliant and wonderful just the way you are. Fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image, seen and known before He laid the foundations of the world, and He doesn’t need a do-over.

What’s my point? My point is that yes, we need to be intentional about the words we use as we do life with other people, and we need to be intentional about the words we receive from others. 

If someone says something that doesn’t ring true to you, if it pings your spirit, rejecting the judgment can be as simple as saying, “I don’t receive that.” You don’t have to make it into a big drama but you also don’t have to let everything in.

And if you suspect you might have spent some time living a life based on the untrue words of other people, one of the best things you can do is to ask God to show you any lies you’ve been believing about yourself. Ask, expecting an answer, because if you love Jesus you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you and He loves to be your teacher and guide in life.

But don’t stop with the lies. The Holy Spirit is also the speaker of truths so, having dug up the lies at the root, ask God, “what’s your truth? What do you say about me?” 

Newton’s third law of motion teaches us that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” but I don’t think this law is limited to motion. I’m here to propose that, “every lie has an even more powerful truth.” God’s truth!

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5

#wordshavepower #positiveselftalk #selftalk #truth #IamwhoyousayIam