The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. – Proverbs 15:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 4, 2019): Proverbs 15

American fantasy writer Patrick Rothfuss in “The Name of the Wind” writes, “Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” Words have the power to change lives, both for the better and the worse. The idea that likens words to a sword is not exaggerated. In some circumstances, the destruction brought on by words is worse than the weapons that we employ through war. Words, commentaries, and political speeches change our hearts and our destinies. Martin Luther King speaking “I have a dream …” still resonates within our beings and shapes our concepts of race and the future. John F. Kennedy was not scientist nor an astronaut, but he might have had more to do with our putting a man on the moon in late July 1969 than any other single individual involved in the project when he spoke these words;

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too (John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962).

If we are being honest, we often shape our words like a missile to achieve a particular objective. When we are arguing with a friend, we want to win them over to our perspective. And if we are upset, we shape our words to cause damage to whomever it is that we are speaking. I am the recipient of many of these missiles, aimed at me by hurting people. They intend to cause me pain, usually, because someone has damaged them.

And in these moments, we have a choice. We can return the hate, turning our words into missiles that will damage to the one who is attacking us. Or we can pause and try to change the situation, allowing our words to soothe the damage instead of making it worse.

Our words can extend life or destruction. But the choice is ours as to which our words might accomplish.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 16