Faith Filled Family Magazine September 2016 | Page 113

Speech Sabotage
Can Your mouth work against
you and Hurt others?

By L. Carter

D

o you frequently use
words like “always”
and “never” in your
every day vocabulary? Do you find yourself
making statements with these
words that sound negative, but
you say it anyway because you
believe it to be true? English
scholars will tell you that use of
Absolutes such as “always” and
“never” are generally discouraged in the English language.
This is because none of us either
always or never does anything.
The word “always” may seem
like a positive word, but it is negative when used in a negative
context. These are such negative statements: “I always wake
up late; I never get to work on
time.” Or: “I always run out of
money; I never have anything left
after paying bills.” Or how about
this one: “I can never remember
things; I am always so forgetful.”
Perhaps it is just out of habit that
we say things like this. Maybe
we heard our parents or grandparents talking this way, and we
think there is nothing wrong with
it. But there is.
Not only will an English professor
discourage you from using these
words, but study of God’s word
admonishes us to take care not
to use them either. More specifically, the Word cautions us
about the tongue and its power.

It says, “Death and life are in the
power of the tongue, and those
who love it will eat its fruit.” (Prov.
18:21). So we can either speak
death, or speak life. Whichever
we choose to speak, we will eat
its fruit. That is a promise. What
does it mean to “eat its fruit”? It
means we will either reap the
rewards of having spoken life to
our situation, or the opposite –

“Believe it or not
phrases such as “I
never have enough
money,” is speaking death over your
finances. You are
making a declaration in the atmosphere about what
you will not have.“

we will reap lack from speaking
death.

Believe it or not phrases such as
“I never have enough money,”
is speaking death over your
finances. You are making a declaration in the atmosphere about
what you will not have. You
are making a decision that you
will not make ends meet. You