The Power of Words

Did you ever give a gift to your loved one? What if that loved one deliberately misused your gift?  Say that you gave a luxurious sports car to him but later on you found out that the person recklessly drove the car, and it caused injury not just to him but to others too. How would you feel about that? Would you be happy or disappointed?

God gave us the gift of being able to utter intelligible speech. Every human being has this gift which makes us different from animal. The ability to speak is what enables people to convey their thoughts, emotions and feelings. But just like  a car or a vehicle, the gift of speech can also be misused and might hurt others. How would the God who gave us that gift would feel? He would surely be very disappointed.

So we should make sure to use our speech ability in a good way. Meaning, we should guard our 'tongue' or the way we speak in a way that will not cause pain to others. Why so? The way we speak and the words we utter is so powerful that it can either make or break a person. A proverb say that a twisted speech can cause despair while calm tongue is a tree of life. This means that when we speak calmly and kindly, it can sooth and even make someone feel refreshed. But if we speak using harsh words, it can even make someone depressed.

A woman lives with her three children, which she raise alone. The eldest is a boy and loves playing with other kids outside. The second child is a girl, she seldom goes outside the house. One day, she went out with his brothers friends to go biking around the neighborhood and after an hour, her brother's friends came rushing to their house and told their mom that the girl was hit by a car. As a mother, their mom was really worried thinking that something bad has happened to her daughter. But soon, the other children were on the floor laughing so hard because they've successfully pranked their friend's mom. Soon after the incident, the woman's blood pressure went too high because of worrying and still thinking about the bad joke the kids just told her. She suffered from a heart attack, good thing the neighbors are there to help her.

This experience shows how destructive thoughtless words are. So before you open your mouth and utter something, always keep in mind how powerful words are. Uttering thoughtless and harsh words towards someone is like stabbing that person with a sword, it can cause a deep emotional wound can destroy good relationships and worst, it can even cause someone's death.

Negative Use of Speech

Language is part of our everyday lives and some obscene language have become part of people's speech. These include:

• Profanity

• Cursing

• Vulgar words

Some people use obscene language for fun or to make others laugh. I've observed some comedians who use such vulgar words just to make their audience laugh.

Slandering others through gossips. Some idle talks about others is not bad at all. There are some who talks about others nicely, maybe to praise someone or tell others about good news that happened to someone. If the goal of a conversation is to be able to share positive news which are helpful and encouraging, then it is a good gossip. But nowadays, some people tend to gossip about others and says slanderous things which causes damage to others, usually slander damages someone good reputation and even leads to quarrelling.

Abusive words and speech. Like what is mentioned earlier, words are so powerful that it can even hurt a person emotionally. Abusive speech usually involves harsh and evil word that is used to criticize, insult, show anger and tarnish the dignity of someone.

As much as words can destroy a person, when used in a right way it can also be up building and encouraging. To use our gift of speech properly, we should ought to speak using positive words that are kind, wholesome, up building and encouraging. Be careful when using your gift of speech and make your creator who gave that gift really happy.