The Power of Words

The other day Faith (our daughter) was playing with her typical girly toys, a broom and a mop.  Now don't get all mad at me for saying they are typical girly toys, I have two boys who are older as well and they NEVER had a broom and/or mop to play with so I am basing this on past history here!!
Anyway, where was I, oh yeah - she was demonstrating she had no interest in playing with them as they were.  She had taken the broom and mop heads off and she was using the handles as swords!  It was actually kind of funny until I had to punish her for using her sword on her brother's arm. A Facebook post about that got into the pen being mightier than the sword.  The power of words.  Got me thinking to all the times I might gossip, put others down.  Why do I do that to others?  When I gossip I am trying to increase myself.  I step on others but we really are all from God. God made us all in his likeness.

 Genesis 1:27  God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them

 The source of my power needs to be the word of God, not the word of my own.  I love what John said when talking about his cousin in very simple words:

John 3:30 He must increase; I must decrease.

 John is explaining that all we have comes from Heaven, that John himself is not the Messiah and that Christ himself has made his joy complete.

I need to get out of the way.  My humanness is a blockade to let Christ through.  Gossip is a big one and sadly, it's discussed at length in my favorite book of the bible, James.

James 3:5 In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers.

The band Third Day has an awesome song about this - Nothing At All.  It's a good song, check it out!  They actually read the above from the bible.  I think years age God had a message for me to stop the gossip and knocking people down with words as I would turn to this passage often and at the same time I heard this song.  You can't get a more direct message than that and at this time I think I need to turn back to both the reading and the song especially as we enter Holy Week!  If Christ can't increase at this time of the Church year then I'm in big trouble!


So I pray to keep my words kind and simple for the remainder of Lent and beyond.  I pray my words have integrity and are uplifting, not downgrading and demoralizing.  I pray I can keep this up and when I fail I can make up for it quickly.

Matthew 5:36-37 Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.