By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
The words we speak to someone have the power to be someone’s breaking point or they can become that person’s turning point
The Bible teaches a lot about the power of our words. In Ephesians, Paul gives us some encouragement in what we should say and why.
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
First, Paul instructs us not to speak gossip, vulgarities, profanities, anything that would harm what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus.
Instead, he wants our words to be directed toward lifting others up.
In the rodeo community, the cowboy crowd is actually used to doing that. Whether on the timed event of the arena or the rough stock, we all know how to lift another person up, either with praises about the run or ride they had or encouragement if they missed their catch. Constructive criticism is welcome and serves to build that person up by helping them improve and learn from where they might have gone wrong.
The same needs to be extended to the world around us. That can be a lot harder. It’s easier to be unkind to total strangers. Social media has made that easier for us but now it carries over into the real world and the people we interact with there. It should be easy to hold our tongue when a server in a restaurant is terrible or when our wives or girlfriends get under our skin. And better yet, we should be looking for opportunities to lift that person up. God puts people in front of us every day who we have no idea what they are going through, good or bad.
Speaking angrily or in frustration and being unkind can be the last straw for that person while offering a kind work or encouragement can be what gives someone at the end of their rope the real hope they needed.
And when someone has been torn down by corrupting talk, it’s a lot harder for someone else to come along and build someone up when they have a lot further to go. A foundation of kind words and encouragement that you’ve already left means the person gets lifted even higher if the next person comes along with a positive comment.
Sure we all have people we don’t like. Sometimes we’re given good reason to not like that person. The expression, “if you can’t say anything good about someone, don’t say anything at all,” really kicks in at that moment. We can at the very least avoid them or refrain from gossping to someone else. Better yet, Paul wants us to still find a way to be encouraging.
Why does that matter? When Paul says our encouragement gives grace to others, what it does is opens up the opportunity to tell others what it means to have a saving faith in Jesus. We are never going to find opportunities to bring that up in conversation with someone who we have torn down. And if we’re known to be Christians, it makes it harder for the next person to share Jesus is the example we have set has been discouraging instead of encouraging.
Look for opportunities in front of you this week to be an encouragement.
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