SAY WHAT?

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose.
Prov.18:22

An experiment was said to have been carried out in the western world to find out the power of words. The research involved a class of young students, divided into two groups and sent into two different rooms. They were to speak over boiled rice which had been kept in these rooms. In one room, they were to say curse words which included “ugly” and in the other they were to say good words which included “beautiful”. The outcome after a number of days was that the rice over which good words were consistently spoken turned out golden yellow in color while that over which curse words were spoken turned dark brown in color. Both portions of rice came from the same source and were supposed to be decaying. The story may either be concocted or real but the truth behind it is in no way demeaned.

In Mark 11:12 – 14, we see the account of Jesus speaking in response to the fig tree which means the fig tree spoke initially by the way it appeared. When Jesus spoke to it, according to Matthew’s account, the tree withered immediately. (Matt. 21:19)

We have the authority to talk back at the things in our lives that are not going the way we want them to. When a work of our hand is not going the way we envisage, it is making a statement directly opposite to what is written in Psalm 1:3b. Every aspect of our lives answer to what we are saying and some of those things are not words but actions and reactions. The way we dress for example is a statement to the world of the worth we place on ourselves. Dress the way you want to be addressed even if you can’t disclose your address yet. Dress for where you are going and how you want to feel not where you are or how you feel. God called us as His children to be thermostats and not thermometers in our surrounding. We call the shots.

This country, Nigeria, is answering to what we the citizens are calling it. Unfortunately, it is sometimes the echo of what foreigners, who do not know Nigeria like we do, are calling it. We are royalty and we ought to be mindful of the things we say because kings don’t make passing remarks, they decree and the subjects enforce it. We have been given the gift of a mouth that cannot be contradicted (Luke 21:15). So, do take care to watch your words because they form your world. We don't just speak when we utter words, we are creating.

Perhaps one of the things that set David apart as a man after God’s heart was that he was wise enough to have prayed to God to set a guard over his lips. (Ps. 141:3). We might want to take a cue from him.

-'Bayor