The Power of Words
Written in March 2020
————
The other night I could not sleep and felt panic gripping my body so I turned on some worship music. The clock on the stove read 3:13 and I heard the Lord whisper Romans 3:13.
“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Well…that’s heavy,” I thought.
As I pressed in I realized that He was leading me to pray for the blood of Jesus to cover the careless words that we as a nation speak.
I prayed over our world and our country, that God would heal our tongues and that His people would turn back to Him.
The power of the tongue can be measured in life or in death. Just think about the stark difference in the words of Hitler and Mother Theresa.
The book of Proverbs is overflowing with verses that touch on the power of words:
Proverbs 11:9 “Evil words destroy one’s friends; wise discernment rescues the godly.”
Proverbs 11:12 “It is foolish to belittle a neighbor; a person with good sense remains silent.”
Proverbs 20:15 “Wise speech is rarer and more valuable than gold and rubies.”
There are times as a mom that I find myself speaking always/never statements out of frustration. Things like “You always fight with your brother” or “You never pick up after yourself.” I know from my own experience that these sorts of spoken sentiments can become part of an identity, and not a God given identity. Just because they squabble with their siblings does not make them a fighter, nor does leaving trash on the floor make them a dirty person.
In this hour I feel God is saying that we have become loose with our lips, believing that with “anonymity” our words do not matter. But He has seen the overflow of hearts and it grieves Him. It grieves him to see the untruths spoken carelessly on social media, the snide comments to friends and family, and the twisting of words through the news media to terrify and frighten.
The Lord impressed upon me that the world can change when the message of hope is louder than that of doom. People are hungry for truth in a world filled with lies. “Who can we trust?!” they cry.
When you speak, type, or share something you empower those words. It is not passive.
The most important command God gives us is not to be right, it’s to love. Everything we say or write must be filtered through a lens of love. We have to care more about our audience than we care about being right.
Love conquers and covers all. Love always wins. Everything else will fall away, but love never fails.
So today, in the midst of everything happening in our world, let us choose words that offer hope, love and peace.
