Imagine a young toddler girl with pale skin, blue-green eyes, and curly blonde hair sucking on a pacifier. Family, friends, and strangers would come up to her to say hi in excitement but quickly realize she was one of the shy ones.
That was me and that shyness was spoken over me all the time. Through reflection, I don’t think it was something that I felt I could control. It’s what felt safest to me and came naturally. As I got older, the shyness remained and only those closest to me got to really hear me. The more I learned about God after receiving Christ, the more I stepped into my voice, but it was still a slow, gradual process. By the time I was 13 in junior high in 2013 it was clear I had a quick wit and was clever amidst being the quiet observer that I was. Comebacks came easily when it was time to defend myself, defend others, or simply outsmart who was in front of me. To set the stage even further, I lived in a culture and a home that subconsciously and consciously promoted being entitled to doing and saying whatever you wanted.
5 “Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
James 3:5-8 NIV
The Lord convicted me of my tongue in junior high and in shame I overcorrected, I chose to not speak. Weeks went by and I carried guilt, convincing myself that it was better to not speak at all rather than start a fire. This conviction and this passage has been distinctly brought up over and over again in my life to purify me. Although, every time I have been in this moment of conviction, I leaned into condemnation. This condemnation paved a way for the enemy to intimidate me to be self-focused and silent amidst what I was seeing while repeatedly tempting me to believe worldly half-truths as a coping mechanism. It worked. In this, I unknowingly made agreements with the enemy by justifying his arrows and tolerating lies that led me into cycles of confusion.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”
Proverbs 4:23-27 NIV
Tension grew between what I was observing people saying, what I was told was “good” or “right”, and what I was aware of from God for what He said was truth. Spiritually, I became so sensitive to being able to hear heart impurity out of my mouth and others, and I couldn’t not hear it. It felt like I saw every spark of sin from the mouth of man spread into corruption, disunity, and ultimately, bigger fires that would spread in the seen and unseen. Anger and frustration stirred within me and honestly, I didn’t know how to manage it and I didn’t know what to do. It consumed me.
Simultaneously as I saw the sparks coming from the tongues around me, I was still starting sparks myself and was not much different than those around me. Even though I so deeply wanted to be separate and holy, I still didn’t know how to be and I got stuck in desiring to see someone in my life to show me the way how so that I could follow them. I wrestled with pride as I compared the things I said to others and gave myself more grace to prevent myself from falling into condemnation again. This is a cycle that repeated over and over, years passed as the warfare lingered over my mind and heart.
21 “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
Proverbs 18:21 NIV
Fast forward through high school and college to 2023, I was 23 years old. The Lord had brought me through countless things that brought me to Kingdom Equip that summer. I was in a place of deep brokenness, a lack of identity, and yet also deeply thirsting for God. Spiritual gifts was a newer topic for me and I had a longing to have the gift of exhortation, or encouragement. I prayed earnestly for the gift because I deeply believed it could change lives around me. I didn’t know exactly how, but I had faith that it could. In the nature of God being the redeemer that He is, those prior 10 years of speaking death and being convicted around those who spoke death actually had the purpose to propel me to be a woman of God who spoke life.
My exhortation for you today is to humbly ask the Spirit of God how you speak life on a daily basis. Is your mind how mine was, full of condemnation and lies that is influencing your heart and bringing forth death from your tongue? Are you in a cycle of speaking more death than life, and does that need to be broken off of you today to speak life from a place of freedom? Do you join others in spreading fires or complacently let the forrest be burnt up by the untamed tongue? Do you search for ways to uplift people and place a seed of courage in their heart by a truth of God so He can water it?
Along with my exhortation, my prayer and blessing over you is that you would speak life and believe in the supernatural impact it can cause in the seen and unseen. In humility, may you pioneer to be the first to compliment, point out hope, bring back to the Word of God, and encourage as a light for the world, all for Jesus’ glory to be magnified!
