Thursday, June 17, 2010

?Direction?

As soon as I finished the very first post...all inspiration fled.  I've been trying to figure out where to go from that first post...what subject do I tackle first?  This morning, I read something that threw me into an emotional tailspin.  The Bible tells us the power of life and death are in the tongue and these days, an extension of the tongue can be the written word.  I realize that most people don't set out to hurt others by what they say or write...but we also don't stop to think about how our words will affect those who hear or read them.  Words have the power to inspire, to encourage, to strengthen, to guide and they have the power to destroy, to discourage and to lead astray.

I realized, even as I read the words, that the emotions I was experiencing, came from the enemy of my soul.  I refused to allow myself to dwell on the words, but I still felt such a heaviness and a feeling of failure enveloped me.  When the words would cross my mind, I would tell myself that the individual would never have said anything to hurt me or to make me feel this way, to remember where the attack was coming from...but the sadness threatened to drown me.  Just as the enemy used words, carelessly chosen, to attack me, my Lord and God, used words carefully chosen to remind me that I may never see the results of my labor until I reach heaven's shores, but I am to continue to be faithful and to trust Him.  These are the words that He sent to me through a precious "adopted" daughter:

More Than You’ll Ever Know
Watermark

Something brought you to my mind today
I thought about the funny ways you make me laugh
And yet I feel like it's okay to cry with you
Something about just being with you
When I leave I feel like I've been near God
And that's the way it ought to be...

CHORUS:

'Cause you've been more than a friend to me
You fight off my enemies
'Cause you've spoken the Truth over my life
And you'll never know what it means to me
Just to know you've been on your knees for me
Oh, you have blessed my life
More than you'll ever know, yeah, yeah, yeah
More than you'll ever know, yeah, yeah, yeah

You had faith, when I had none
You prayed God would bring me a brand new song
When I didn't think I could find the strength to sing
And all the while I'm hoping that I'll
Do the kind of praying for you that you've done for me
And that's the way it ought to be...
You have carried me
You have taken upon a burden that wasn't your own
And may the blessing return to you
A hundredfold, oh yeah...
A hundredfold, oh yeah...

The moral of this lesson, for me anyway, is to carefully choose the words that I let fly...I need to speak life rather than death to the hearer of my words.  I need to encourage, strengthen, inspire and guide the hearer to truth...otherwise, I'm just wasting my breath.  So...what do I do with the hurt?  That is the topic that I'll have to study and post about next. 

God also chose to use the song "I Am" by Mark Schultz to really minister to me throughout the day.  I woke up with the words playing in my head and every time I listened to it, I just sobbed, out of thankfulness, that He is the I AM and the healer of the broken among so many other things.  The song is included below this post. 

Until next time...choose to speak life rather than death!

Tammi 

2 comments:

~Jess~ said...

I think we talked about life and death though the power of words a few weeks ago, didn't we. Thanks for the reminder. I have been thinking a lot about that conversation over the past two days. Thank you for the reminder in this post. Often time my words come across sarcastic so thank you for the post.

Gram (Connie M) said...

this is so true I have been thinking about the same thing.... so many times my words come across totally different sounding than I mean them to and I can't ever recall them and start over even tho I want to.