It's only words ...

Whether we care to admit it or not words have a powerful effect on us. What we hear spoken to us can encourage us, inspire us, motivate us, and build us up. Or, on the other hand, they can depress us, hurt us, make us sad, make us angry, or make us feel worthless. Words can be uplifting, or damaging, and so how we handle them is extremely important.

Rudyard Kipling said;

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

We just can’t get enough of words and no wonder when they really can make a big difference to us. Perhaps you can remember people in your life who have said things to you that gave you a real sense of purpose. I know I can, and I will always be grateful to them for their input.

Or, perhaps you can remember things people said to you that made you feel worthless. Perhaps you are still bound up because of things that were spoken to you in the past, and you just can’t break free of them. I reckon that there is a vast amount of potential throughout the history of mankind that has never been released, simply because it has remained bound up by negative words. It’s a great shame, but really shows that we have to be careful about how we respond to the things that we hear, and how we have to be responsible for the things that we say.

I have decided that wherever possible I am going to try to be known as someone who brings positive affirmation, rather than negative criticism. However, that needs to be done within a framework of honesty, because there is a place for criticism, but the criticism should be constructive. It is so much better to try to live life where your words lift people up, rather than tear people down. It’s not always easy though!

Our character is shown in our words

Do you know that people make judgments about you based on your words? If you choose your words carefully, such that they are mostly known to be right, true, and genuinely caring, you will be judged as one who is wise, reliable, honest and trustworthy. Your words will earn you a good reputation, provided that you do actually live up to them.

In contrast, if you speak rashly, offering advice without really knowing, you will be judged as foolish. If you speak harshly, and unjustly, you will be judged as hostile. If you speak falsely, you will be known as a liar. If you ‘tell tales’ just to humiliate someone, you will be known as a gossip. If you speak obscenities, you will be known as foul-mouthed, and if you speak coarse jokes you will be known as lewd. If you constantly see things in a negative light, you will be judged as a cynical pessimist, to be avoided by all but other cynical pessimists. If you speak only about yourself, you will be judged to be self-absorbed, selfish and a bore. If you speak promises that you rarely, if ever, keep, you will be judged to be unreliable. So, if you are going to speak, think carefully about what impact it is going to have on your reputation.

Keep your tongue in check and you’ll keep your body in check

It is actually a lot harder to keep your tongue in check that it is to keep your body in check. So, if you can discipline yourself to keep watch over what you say, it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep watch over what you do. If you think about it, we are restricted in what we can do by the law, because we know that if we act in a way that breaks the law, and we get caught, there will be consequences that we will have to face. There are no such restrictions on what we say. In fact, the right to freedom of speech is guarded like a national treasure. The price that we pay for that is sometimes very high, like some of the ‘verbal bullying’ that takes place in our schools, and online. In some cases verbal bullying has been so bad that the victim has been driven to suicide. So, we really do have a tremendous responsibility to use our words carefully, because they really can have a very large impact on those around us.

Martin Luther King Jr once said;

“The law is not there to change the heart, but to restrain the heartless.”

It is well worth remembering that. The law does not change a person’s heart, and so if the law is taken away, unrestrained behaviour may be the result. A simple example is when a driver slows down for a speed camera, and then speeds up once he is past it. The point is that if you choose to speak only things that are right, true, and spoken with genuine care for others, you are demonstrating self-restraint. You are not restrained by the law, you are restrained by something much higher; a sense of morality. If your speech is governed by a sense of morality, then your actions will be also. The question is where are you going to get this sense of morality from? For me, I get it from my Christian faith. My faith gives me a sense of moral obligation from my accountability to God, and this means that my actions should automatically comply with the law, because they are governed by something much more powerful than the law.

And to close …

Since I’ve been talking about the power of words this time I’ll finish with a quotation. I like to collect quotations, and they illustrate perfectly what I’ve been talking about. The very fact that books of quotations exist are a testament to the power of words. Quotations are great words that have been spoken in the past, that are powerful enough to be recorded so that they can be used to inspire current and future generations. One of my favourites is a quotation from Henry Ford, who spoke the following words to emphasize how much our mindset affects our lives:-

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”

Think about that, it could change your life. That’s the power of words!