4 minute read
By Bethany Rees

Have you ever regretted saying something to someone? 

Maybe it was out of anger or pride. Maybe it was out of your own trauma or hurt. Maybe it was even justified in your own head because you, after all, were seeking justice.

The words we say, and where we say them from, matters.

We can speak life or we can speak death over those we are speaking to. 

Let’s be honest. As a species, we usually speak from our emotions, or what we’re feeling in the moment. 

But our emotions aren’t very good drivers in delivering a message. Our emotions are more like the road rage drivers popping off at every offense, creating even more damage than the minor infraction that caused them to get riled up in the first place. 

Our emotions react…to everything. 

So in zooming way out…we have a couple of problems in society: 

1. Our emotions react and cause us to always be offended.
2. We let our emotions and offenses control the words we speak.
3. We speak our complaining and venting words via the megaphones in our lives.

And you know what, the enemy loves to get us riled up with emotion and keep us in a state of offense. When we’re always offended, we sow the seeds of disunity and death using our megaphones. 

Just watch social media or sit within a group of people for 5 minutes and you’ll see that the majority of us are using our megaphones just to spread our road raging emotions and our personal offenses…usually in hopes to vent and feel better, or to get validation that we were wronged and are justified in our emotions. 

And we wonder why everyone is walking around in anxiety, stress, and a bad mood? 

The Answer: Because all we’re spreading and consuming is negativity. 

Let’s pause for a minute and think about the purpose of a megaphone. Cheerleaders use them to cheer, or encourage, their fans to support the team on to victory. Groups use them to rally supporters for their cause. Teachers and administrators use them to keep order amongst the chaos. 

Unfortunately, most of us don’t use our megaphones to cheer, encourage, rally supporters for a cause, or to keep order. We use them to complain and to vent. 

So I challenge myself and everyone reading this post to change where we speak FROM and what we speak THROUGH. 

Instead of reacting to a situation before us, let’s respond by praying first. Asking God to take our thoughts and emotions captive to Christ, and to fix our heart on Him…not the offenses our emotions want us to focus on.  

Then, we can speak life FROM a heart devoted to Christ…and speak THROUGH a table discussion.

In a table discussion, we go to the person involved in, or who has authority over, the situation and we can seek clarity and better communication. We can listen. We can gain a better perspective. And then we can speak love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control…WE CAN SPEAK LIFE!

Table talk discussions that speak life from the heart of Christ fix more problems in this world than megaphones that speak negativity from emotions ever could! 

In summary, let’s stop speaking FROM our emotions and offenses THROUGH megaphones. 

Instead, let’s speak FROM a heart like Christ THROUGH table discussions. 

Know Better. Do Better. Live Better. Speak from the Right Place.

Rocks before Sand!

Scripture: 

“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.”

~Ephesians 4:29

Theme Song: 

Toby Mac - Speak Life

References Used:

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.