POINT ONE: Guard your words

In an un-guarded moment, Martha blames Mary for her stress. Guarding and crafting what we say is one of our biggest challenges in life, especially with those we’re most familiar with.

If you can choose one thing to work on this month, one thing to help you grow relationally and to make you smell more like Jesus, choose to work on your words. Why? You use them all the time and the Bible says time and again that they are massively powerful.

I used to quote Proverbs 28:1 to justify why I should run cross-country at School, and Proverbs 27:14 in response to my parents trying to get their teenager out of bed in the morning. The fact is that you can use the Bible out of context to say almost anything, but unless the whole of God’s Word backs it up, you can be damagingly wrong.

Let’s have a look at a range of Proverbs and then some New Testament writings that all have the same theme; words have power, both for good and for bad:

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. Proverbs 12:25

Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life, he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. Proverbs 13:3

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. 15:1

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Proverbs 17:28

A fool’s lips walk into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating. Proverbs 18:6

Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Proverbs 18:21

Have a read of James chapter 3, he talks about how hard and important it is to tame the tongue; it’s like a rudder on a ship, or a small fire in dry forest.

Here’s probably my favourite passage on words:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear it. Ephesians 4:9

If you were to look at a transcript of all your words from the last month, what percentage of them would be corrupting or decaying, what percentage would be just neutral nothingness and what percentage would be encouraging or building-up?  Let’s all aim to increase the percentage of the latter each month, so that we can eventually only use encouraging words.

How to increase the percentage:

1)      The Holy Spirit really works. He’ll help you with if you ask; that’s why after the ‘Taming the Tongue’ bit of James chapter 3, it goes on to say that wisdom-with-words comes ‘from above’.

2)      Get lots of His Bible inside you, it’s not made from concentrate, it’s 100% pure God-Word, and it’ll be good for you and others.

3)      Keep it on your mind and before you open your mouth ask yourself “will this build and benefit others?”

Note of caution: don’t just go spouting bible verses to people every time they say something vaguely related to a theme can remember a chapter and verse for. That’s why Paul says we need to build people up ‘as fits the occasion’. We need to make sure that we listen and ask questions so that we can be sure to understand the occasion and choose that are surgical yet sensitive.