The old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is a lie.
Words have the power to hurt deeply and permanently. You know it is true. Words also have the power to heal. The truth about words is found in the Bible:
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18
Some of the Positive Effects of Words
The Power to Instruct:
Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)
The reason? Because of the tremendous influential power of the tongue when employed by a teacher or preacher, those who teach and preach are held accountable to God and to man for what they say. The beneficial uses of the tongue carry a great warning:
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be dro`wned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matthew 12:35-37)
This is our kind and gentle Jesus, Himself, speaking. He is not making this up. Not just the teachers, but everyone will be judged by the words they say.
The Power to Direct:
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. (James 3:3-5a)
Although the tongue, so small, can direct the whole life of a man, notice the tongue also can be steered by a rider or a pilot. Whoever is at the reins or at the helm will determine where the ship or the horse is to go.
The Holy Spirit of Jesus is supposed to be our pilot. We cannot tame our tongues, but He can control our entire lives when we are surrendered to Him.
One way He does this is by urging us to control our input. We know that “garbage-in-garbage-out” is true for electronic computers, but we’ve forgotten it also is true for our brains.
It is.
What we see and hear goes into our hearts. And if you are a parent, you have the responsibility also to control what your children see and hear. As a parent, Himself, God holds you, parent, accountable for what your children listen to or watch on the TV, computer, radio, MP3 player, and telephone.
Garbage in, garbage out. Faith in, faith out. It is that simple. A heart filled with good things will produce an overflow of good words from the mouth.
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)
The Power to Encourage:
Sometimes our Pilot steers us into troubled waters where those around us are being tossed by storms. We could rescue our neighbors from these awful waves, but too often we find ourselves succumbing to the storms, drowning in demonic seas of criticism, grumbling, complaining, and fault-finding. We must overcome and rise above these storms and call on God in repentance, to guide and strengthen us against them.
Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. (Ephesians 5:4)
Just do not go there. Instead, in these situations, stop.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)
Find something good to notice. Ask God to show you a reason to rejoice or compliment. When we begin with thankful thoughts, it is then that we can proceed, even with ideas for correction or improvement. If we begin with the bottom of our own ship filled with a swamp of filth, the first decent wave with sink us, along with those we would have rescued.
A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. (Proverbs 25:11)
Here I always imagine a silver bowl of Golden Delicious apples — inviting, refreshing, and royal. I want to be that.
Negative Effects of Words
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (James 3:5b-8)
Fire has many great uses. We love it, when it is contained, to cook our food or warm us in winter or make our glass and steel. However, we know the dangers. We know: “Those who play with matches get burned.” Don’t we.
When we condemn, criticize, slander, gossip, lie, or curse, we are using the tongue destructively. Just like fire, which is destructive when uncontrolled, words are destructive when out of control. As with a spark of fire, it takes only one careless word to create a lot of havoc.
And like little children, we need our Father to be in charge of the matches, the sparks, our words.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. (James 3:9-12)
You know.
One moment we are blessing God in church, and by the time we get to the lunch table, we are cursing men who are made in God’s image. Criticizing and slandering our fellow man is unholy. This should not be and will not be, if our hearts are right, because words flow from the heart. Nothing gives us away as much as our speech. It shows where our hearts are.
Bitterness, anger, and hatred in the heart it will come out through what we say and how we say it. The heart is the factory that produces all vile speech. The tongue is only the showcase window of the heart.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
Joseph’s coat, by Diego Velázquez (1630), depicts Joseph’s brothers bringing the coat to their father Jacob and asking him to identify it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a coat of many colors for him. When His brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. –Genesis 37: 3-4
“But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Mark 16:7
Galilee – Israël (Photo credit: Emmanuel Dyan)
Gone to Galilee? But He just died Friday! We saw Him die on the cross. We watched them bury Him.
Gone to Galilee?
Why Galilee, an out-of-the way sort of place, about 60 miles (over a day’s walk) north of the gravesite?
It’s where Jesus grew up and ministered, but that’s about it. He had always been preparing to leave Galilee, to go Jerusalem, the Capital, where all the powerful and influential world-changers were.
Since they just crucified Him, if He truly was risen from the dead, seems He’d march straight to the palace or the temple and SHOW them He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Messiah of God Almighty!
Galilee? Nobody there but His followers.
Us.
He Came back to show Himself to us.
To the very same ragtag group of people who denied Him, misunderstood Him, forsook Him, and fled, He returned; to deserters.
Especially mentioned by name, to Peter, who had denied even knowing Him, He returned.
He came back for us as well. He has a message, is calling us, to travel to our “Galilee” to go back to the place where we fellowshiped with Jesus and to begin again. To follow Him all over again.
He will meet us there. In fact, He has gone on ahead and is already there.
The Disciples did not witness Him rising from the dead. They were gone. Out of it.
It is incredible enough to think that He could just decide to rise again, and to return to anyone. But he came back for us, to those who did believe and needed to know that He is alive, needed to believe again, and more.
The proof of the Resurrection is not the absence of Jesus’ body from the tomb. No, it is the presence of Jesus with His followers. The greatest promise of the Resurrection is not that we shall live forever, although that is great, indeed. No, the greatest message is that though we are still sinners, weak, and faithless like the Disciples, Jesus returned to US.
The Bible is not a book telling mostly how men kept seeking God. It is a record of how God keeps seeking US, despite our lack of faith.
And why?
The risen Christ has come back to change us from doubters to ambassadors. Jesus came back to us because He loves us.
I look back over my life at all the mistakes I’ve made, all the times I’ve failed, gone my own way, strayed, and each time, He came for me. He found a way to get to me even when I tried not to be found.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. I Corinthians 15:3-8
Here, Paul is writing to the poor struggling Corinthians, who were failing badly at being the Church. To those backsliding, sinful, divisive, faithless Christians, Paul preaches the Resurrection. He reminds them, and us, that the risen Christ chooses to return, to strengthen Christians.
How will we respond?
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:1-4
I suffered from going into the past to worry about a future that never came about.
However, I did stop worrying about the past-future-what-ifs and I’d like to share with you how to do it, in case you find yourself needing to know.
1. Stop imagining.
My kids tell a joke, disguised as a riddle, which begins: Imagine you are in a car rolling backward down a hill toward a lake. The troubles and frustrations described in the joke continue to the point of desperation. There is seemingly no way to survive being drowned in that lake when the question comes: What should you do? Once the victim of this joke tries every possible solution to this seeming riddle and then gives up, the joker gives the answer: STOP IMAGINING! At that point it is very funny.
If you tell it right, the relief in the air is almost palpable at that moment, because the listener latches on to the story because we all have imaginings like this from time to time.
You may have imagined worries, but you can have that palpable relief, too.
In real life.
Imagination is a wonderful tool, in its place—but stop imagining.
2. Take every thought captive and make it obey the truth.
Realize there is something or someone trying to take away your sanity and you need to fight to get it back. Tell yourself the truth, aloud, if needed.
Ah, but what is truth? How can anyone ever possibly know what might have happened?
Don’t go there!
Take that thought captive!
Here is the truth: You are not in control. You do your best with what you are in control of, and then other forces are in control of all the rest. You try hard to be in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time, and then, you let go.
The truth is that God is in control and you are not God. He rules the world. He determines. Not you. Not me. Not any malfunctioning gearbox, not any tornado, not any burglar, not any hormone, not any doctor, not any police.
God.
We read the stories all the time of those who escaped harm while doing the wrong thing. People hide from tornados in flimsy shelters and the whole building blows away except for the flimsy shelter. We read, also, of a tornado that swoops out of nowhere to pick up only one person and passes on to do no more damage. Burglars flee when someone rolls over in bed; other burglars take everything. Careless women have healthy babies; careful women deliver stillborn babies. And on it goes.
The truth is partly in the timing. When God determines it is time, then it is time. We all want to escape all danger, harm, shame, etc., but after doing all we can do, then the ball is in God’s court, and when it comes to THAT ballgame, God wins.
Of course, the fatalist will say, “Then why try?”
We must try hard to stay alive and to keep others alive, if at all possible, because life is a precious gift from God and we are to use it to His glory. We are not to become fatalistic or desponding, but to trust Him to make the best possible outcome from our entire life. We are to cooperate with Him, but not to worry about if He knows what on earth He is doing.
True freedom from worry over past-future-what-ifs came for me — and I hope, for you — with these thoughts:
My baby did not die that day. (It took me a while to get that part.)
Therefore, it was not God’s will for my baby to die that day.
Therefore, it was impossible that he could have died that day.
There could have been NO what-ifs that could have changed that. Since then I have even met a family whose son was run over, with no lasting harm coming to him. It’s all about Who is in control.
And it’s not about you or me.
The glorious liberty that comes from the truth, can set us free from all fear of death and all guilt.
We should do our best and trust God. He can and will take care of the what-ifs.
Words have the power to hurt deeply and permanently. You know it is true. Words also have the power to heal. The truth about words is found in the Bible:
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