Value of Words

Hello all,

I know I have said that I will be posting weekly, but as I was writing my reflection paper for this week I felt that many of you would be interested in reading my reflections over this past week. Thank you to everyone who is supporting me financially and prayerfully, this is just a taste of what I have been learning and processing so far over the past week. I will not do this every week, because some people and stories are not for the Internet, but I think this one is.

The second week of Trek is now completed and I have heard from both Esther and Nathan, as well as hosted my very first youth night at Crossroads MB. I feel like I have learned a lot so far, but more than that I feel very full of the Spirit. These past two weeks I have just been overcome by the presence of God and am just enjoying the soaking experience of being close to my God.  In this space of soaking I feel like I am really receiving from the speakers. I felt like I was able to receive so much from both Esther and Nathan in very different ways. But what I think stood out to me the most from this week was the first day conversation with Esther, and the value of speaking truth and the positive in people’s lives.

At the end of the first night with Esther we did an exercise where we spoke one positive thing to another person about them.  To preface this I feel I must make mention that I believe I have a gifting to be able to see people how, or at least close to how, God see’s people. So in this exercise we all picked a name out of a hat and spoke life giving truth to each other and the person I affirmed pulled me aside later to tell me how touched they were by what I had said. I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what He saw in the other person and relayed that information. This is not the first time I have seen how impactful words of encouragement and truth can be in a person’s life, even someone who seems so relatively put together.

The verses we have been studying in Ephesians focus, at least to me on the power of our words and a good chunk of what both Esther and Nathan talked about were about this as well. This past week we have been sharing and delving deeper into each other’s live and sharing moments of brokenness and restoration and all of this has been deeply convicting me about my own speech. I do not have too much of an issue with coarse jokes or lewd comments, but I keep wondering if the words I am saying, my everyday ordinary interactions with people are life giving?  One of my favourite musicians currently is Toby Mac and he has a song which I have been listening to and meditating on over the past few weeks and several weeks leading up to TREK. The song is called speak life and the lyrics speak to me and further this conviction:

Well it's crazy to imagine,
Words from our lips as the arms of compassion,
Mountains crumble with every syllable.
Hope can live or die.

So speak Life, speak Life.
To the deadest darkest night.
Speak life, speak Life.
When the sun won't shine and you don't know why.
Look into the eyes of the brokenhearted;
Watch them come alive as soon as you speak hope,
You speak love, you speak...
You speak Life

These simple words contain a simple yet incredibly profound truth, and that is that our words carry such a weight that they can bring death or life into the lives of the listeners. Very often I do not think of what or how my words can affect the people around me and I’m not just now thinking of those I am talking to, but those I am talking about, and even random people who may be listening in either intentionally or accidentally. I value transparency and truth very highly but upon reflection I can see times in my own life where I have spoken death to people under the guise of honesty or transparency. More than that I can see times where I have heard simple words of encouragement that brought me up out of deep despair, simply because another person thought to speak life.

This past week for me has been a week of considering the value of what I say and who it is really helping. Am I speaking to convince others that I am great or that someone else is terrible; am I boasting about my accomplishments or trying to gain value by diminishing someone else in the eyes of a third party? I have to admit that after only a short reflection I more examples than I can count of times where I have not been specifically hurtful to a single person but rather I have brought someone down in the eyes of the listener or tried to gain value by boasting without being sensitive to someone else and where they may be struggling.

At the end of the song by Toby Mac there is a line that is only in the music video, it is unsung and just lingers on the screen for a few seconds, but it has been the lynch pin in this conviction I am feeling. “In every encounter we either give life or we drain it, there is no neutral exchange.” Esther touched on this in her teaching and I find such truth in these words.  If I am not speaking life in my conversations then I am draining it. So my prayer this week and for the foreseeable future is to be sensitive to my own words and more than that, to go out of my way and be intentional about speaking life into the lives of the people around me.