Today’s scripture: Proverbs 11:1-11 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Robert Ferguson):
I work for a phone company. There was a time when we had a new trainee in the office who was having a problem with a project and asked if I would help. Whatever they had just done erased four neighborhoods worth of telephone equipment from the database — poles, cables, and terminals all gone. I jokingly said, “Oh my, you have taken the entire south side of town out of service!”
They obviously didn’t take to my humor because they immediately started crying — loudly! It was so fierce, thy turned different colors. I tried to console and let them know it was just a joke. Two or three clicks of the mouse and one <crtl>9 and abracadabra — it was all restored. But it was too late, the damage had been done. It took almost a year before they would start talking to me again.
The mouth is a dangerous weapon, which can work for or against you, depending on how it is used.
I have found ‘talking to myself’ to be great motivation for exercise. Someone tweeted (yes, we are quoting tweets now) that some people talk and others sweat. So while I am running, I tell myself I want to be a sweater — not someone who just talks about exercise and losing weight but someone who is actually doing it. So often in life it seems that we become what we say we are and those around us are affected, positively or negatively, by our choice of words we use when addressing them.
Your mouth is not meant for eating alone, it is also an instrument for charting the course of your life. “With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered.” (Proverbs 11:9, NASB)
But how many people understand this principle? The whole world was created by the spoken words of God. That should give us an insight into how things work here on earth from the spiritual realm. We should understand that we live first in the spiritual before we transmit to the physical. Therefore, if you have not won in the spiritual, you can’t win in the physical realm of life.
Our words hold great power, whether we are repeating them in our heads or speaking them out loud to the people around us. Do you know that some situations in your life and in the lives of others around you are waiting a word from you before they will change? Words like “I know who I am” and “I can never be defeated” are regarded as proud words by some. But when we begin to understand that when Jesus awoke on a boat in a stormy sea, he spoke to the wind and waves and they heard him! When he was confronted with deaf ears, he spoke to them and the ears weren’t deaf to the word of God.
We are made in the image and likeness of God. If Jesus could do all those things, it means we can also do them because we have authority over every thing on earth.
Thought for the day: Be mindful of the words you use — they have power!
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.