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The Power of the Tongue

Have you ever heard a person  misuse a word and wondered why they misused it in the manner they did?  It could have been that they themselves had heard the word used in such a way, or they may have misunderstood  the word themselves. I remember when I was growing up I misunderstood what my parents were saying when they told us to take some of the old corn out of the freezer as the bags were damaged and the corn was freezer burned and no longer edible.  I thought they said it was razor burned.   For years I'd say that an item in the freezer was razor burned.  Then one year I was reading something about frozen food and saw the the correct word for food that was damaged by the freezer .  Boy, did I have a red face.  I later told my mother how I'd been confused.  (I know some of you are thinking, "How could she get it that wrong?")    I heard the word wrong and, therefore,  I used the word all wrong.  I was speaking the wrong word and it made the meaning of my sentence all wrong.  (I'm sure I confused many people with my misusage of words.)

There are so many things in our life that we say and don't give it a thought if it is correct or not.  Take for instance, have you ever said you wanted a car, washer/dryer, new dress or any thing in the worst way?  Think about that.  In what worst way do you want it?  Do you want the dress to have a hole in it?  How about the car do you want it to have had a huge crack the windshield?  I had used that term for many years without even realizing what I'd been saying.  Then one day in my English class at North Georgia Tech our teacher pointed out just how wrong that statement was.  I never used that term again realizing I'd been so wrong in my way of speaking. 

God's word tells us in Proverbs 18:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof."  So very often we repeat things we have heard without realizing what we are doing.  Once we lean this truth that we can speak life or death we become more aware of how we should watch what we say. 

Has anyone ever said something to you that seemed to take the wind out of you by what they said?  Their tongue was used as a destructive tool.  There was a time in my life that I had stopped saying I was blessed because  I had a person say to me "How can you say you are blessed when your whole world is falling apart?"  I at that time was not bold enough to defend that I was standing on God's word that I was blessed.  I quit using that term and in turn robbing myself of a blessing.  Then one day I realized just how I was not using my tongue to bring life into my situations. 

One other way I'd been wrong in my speaking is that for years I'd used the statement "I'm tickled to death to go here or there", or I'd say "that just kills me to do this or that"  My very own words were being destructive to me.  Not that I'm polished in our language now, I  still habitually find myself misusing words.  When I do catch myself doing this I try to correct it.  I want to bring blessings to my life and to those I come in contact with.  I know it sounds trivial in some of the things we say, however, God's word is very direct in what it says to us about how we speak.  In closing this devotion I will remind us of this verse..   

Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. Prov 21:23

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