the thankful project day 8 : words

Today I'm thankful for words because of their power. Did you know that with your words you can literally kill or give life to someone? Check out this verse in Proverbs.

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

Isn't that a mind blowing thought that such a little muscle in our body can have such a big effect on other people. Why God entrusted us with that, I'm not sure. Remember a couple of days ago when I shared about a failure I was thankful for? I talked about how I had been in a bad relationship. Want to hear something more ridiculous? That relationship was long distance and the most hurtful damage done were the words spoken into my life. Some of the words spoken during that time literally affected my health. Crazy, huh?  Read what James has to say about our tongue. 

James 3:6 – and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fir of hell.

There's a flip side to this though - that verse in Proverbs doesn't just say death it also says life. First, lets think about Jesus. He himself is Life and has the words of life. Listen to what Peter said about Jesus. 

John 6:68 – Then Simon peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.

That verse right there is powerful. Think about it, we can breathe life into people but only Jesus can breathe eternal life into people and I'm so glad He does. Also, I met this awesome guy named Dave who breathed life into me. From day one Dave told me he believed in me. He knew the hurt I had and he chose to build me up with his words. I can honestly say that his words rebuilt a lot of the brokenness I had. Still to this day he breathe's life into me. He still tells me he believes in me, he tells me I'm pretty (all the time), and even when I need corrected he does it with gentleness and kindness.

I don't know about you but reading those verses convicts me. I don't always breathe life into people but I want to. I say we all make more of an effort and ask God to help us because apart from Him it isn't possible.