Episode 6: Speak Life

 Hello everyone! Welcome back to the elevate motherhood podcast! It’s an honor that you’re here listening to my words and I hope this episode will be a blessing to you!

Today’s episode is called speak life- the power of the tongue. I almost titled the episode- do your words align with your prayers?  I’ve been thinking and praying a lot about this topic and the podcast.

I mean, if there is one thing I’ve learned in the past several years that has changed my life, this is it.

And so of course I want to share that with you all. It has been so powerful to me and my relationship with God, just my whole life. And what’s funny is I imagined this podcast to be more organization and simplicity and just coming from me as a Christian person and Christian mom. I didn’t really quite imagine this podcast as me really preaching the Word to you guys. But God is just doing what he sometimes does and just surprising us with determining our steps It does feel like he’s going before me and sort of steering me. There is still going to be all of that organization stuff here on this podcast, but the feedback I’m receiving from you guys so far is so much more strongly positive on the faith side of our discussions here. It’s like that’s the stuff  our hearts are longing for. And I get it. Same for me. But my big hesitation is, I don’t feel qualified to preach really. But I’m just going to lean into where God has me right now and share with you guys what’s on my heart. Please fact check me on everything with your bible and your own relationship with God. Not speaking as an expert here, just as a sister, sharing what I’ve learned and am still learning.

But the topic of today’s episode is about “speaking life”. Truly, understanding and applying this concept was life-changing for me. I know there are lots of ways to interpret the phrase “speaking life” but to me it means, speaking only words that align with your prayers and your faith. It means controlling my tongue.

So a quick example of this, if you want your kids to be healthy, you pray that God will keep your kids healthy, you read the Word of God which says you HAVE BEEN HEALED by the stripes of Jesus, so I think we should aim to fully have the faith to believe that He WILL heal. So IF I’m praying that, why would I walk around saying things like “my kids always get sick in the fall.” That is me speaking out that I believe my kids will always get sick in the fall. That is speaking against what I’m asking God for.

Or at the first sign of a sniffle we might be used to saying something like “here we go, I probably need to cancel my plans this weekend…OR…. if there’s something going around, we’ll catch it, it’s just a matter of time.” I believe response that uses our mouths to back up what we believe and ask God for would be something like, “Dear Lord, I thank you that you’re healing my kids right now. That your word says by His stripes we are healed. Lord, help me to know what to do to take care of this child.”

I think a powerful prayer for our children is that they will inherit only the best from both sides of the family. That any generational habits, diseases, addictions, negative thought patterns, would not be passed onto this child. So along these lines, speaking against that prayer would be saying something like, “oh my kid probably will have bad vision, we have bad vision on both sides of our family.” Why would I speak that out if I prayed they would inherit the best of our genes. Maybe we pause and think before we use our mouths to repeat our kids’ embarrassing stories or stories that point out negative characteristics or failures. ESPECIALLY if they can hear you. Or, saying things like I’m in the middle of the terrible twos, or the horrible teenage years, JUST WAIT for the teenage years. No! We aren’t having that. We aren’t receiving that, we aren’t speaking it. We are asking for God’s best.

For clarification, I am not suggesting that you can’t speak something that needs action taken. If your kid is pulling on their ear and crying and saying my ear hurts, I don’t think you’re acting against your prayers by taking them to the doctor and telling the doctor these symptoms. God uses lots of ways to heal us, including doctors! I just would try not to say something to all your friends like, “here we go again, another ear infection, she’s probably going to need tubes at this rate, we get ear infections all the time! We never catch a break!” Does that make sense? I am praying this message comes across very uplifting to you! It’s not like I’m giving you a new rule, and I’m not trying to stifle mom conversation among friends, I’m just hoping this message causes us to reevaluate the position of our hearts in what we say and think and believe and have faith for. This is not something I am perfect at, at all. But it is something I try to do. And my husband and I have agreed together that is important for both of us to do. My husband and I tell each other politely, “hey! speak life” if we feel like we are falling into a negativity trap.

I do think our faith matters to God. Do I think he only acts if we have faith? NO. Do I think he always withholds acting when we don’t have faith? NO. There are biblical examples of Jesus healing people that didn’t have faith. But I do think our faith matters to God. And with as much as I can, I want to do my part of the prayer by believing He will do the things I’m praying for.

And I think what we speak with our mouths matters to God too. He spoke things into existence. Romans 10:9 says if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved.

So I want to give you some biblical examples of this:

1 Peter 3:10 for the scriptures say- if you want to enjoy your life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies.

Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building up others according to their needs, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Matthew 12:36-27 says On the say of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your word you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.

Proverbs 12:18 says there is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

James 1:26 says if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart this person’s religion is worthless.

Psalm 19:14 says may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, o lord, my rock and my redeemer.

There are SO many verses like this on the subject of what we say. You can keep looking them up for yourself to see what a great extent this is taught in the bible.

Another phrase I try to remind myself of, along these lines of what I speak, is- seek godly wisdom. If my husband and I are struggling in some way, it may not be to the benefit of my marriage if I’m always opening my mouth to complain about him to my entire friend group at girls’ night or to my single young friends who aren’t yet married or to people who don’t love the Lord. I do think it would be wise to seek godly counsel from another person who prioritizes her marriage and walks with the Lord. So I try to remind myself before I speak- is this gossip? Is this seeking Godly counsel? If I have something come up where I’m needing advice, I try to think ahead of time who I need to go to, so I’m not just openly sharing with the first person my path crosses with.

So another big disclaimer to this message is, I don’t want applying this concept to be isolating to anyone. That is far from the intent. But I’m saying this because that happened to me once in a season where I was fighting off anxiousness. I felt like I shouldn’t admit that I was struggling, and it made me feel isolated and more scared. I felt like I would be letting God down if I spoke out that I wasn’t feeling great mentally. But here’s what I realized, first of all God knows what I’m thinking. So I’m not like, hiding in my thoughts. Let God in, let him sit with you and help you out. And secondly, God gave us community, he gave us resources in the form of Godly counsel. When I felt like I was struggling, and felt the Lord’s prompting to get help, I talked to a few of my friends who I know are deeply rooted in their faith. I talked to my husband and a couple family members that I know live by the Holy Spirit. And I felt SO much better. I knew that was the right thing for me to do. Having people speak life over me and bring things from the darkness of my mind to the light was POWERFUL. So just reinforcing that so no one thinks you have to struggle alone. Ask for help, and ask for it from people who are where you want to be. Get Godly counsel. Don’t live in isolation or fear. Bring light to the areas of darkness. Light in the form of God’s WORD in the Bible, and from people you trust are walking in faith and can pray and intercede for you.

I also want to address that people are probably thinking- but what if we have all this faith you’re talking about and it still doesn’t come true. What if God doesn’t answer our prayer? Does lack of faith cause my prayers not to be answered? This is a hard question and there are people way more qualified than me to answer it. But I want you to know I’m speaking to you today as a person who has experienced great loss. I have had prayers not answered how I wanted. We live in a broken world, we aren’t currently in heaven. But here’s what I know. I know that past disappointments and hurts don’t diminish future hope. Our minds are renewed every day and God gives us grace for each day. You can go through super hard things, and still have hope. God wants us to have hope.

This is a posture of our hearts. It’s pre-deciding how things are going to go for you from now on. That you’re not just a product of your circumstances. You have pre-decided that your mindset and your words are rooted deeply with the Lord. It’s hope for the future. Hope that all things work together for good. Taking God at his word in romans 8:28 that he said he works all things together for good for those who love him. It’s expecting good. It’s not ignoring that difficulty exists, it means believing God is greater than whatever we could be facing.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the holy spirit.

Ephesians 3:20 He is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us. To Him be the Glory!

John 10:10 The thief came to steal kill and destroy but Jesus came to give life and life abundant.

And here’s one I love. Proverbs 15:15 All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.

This isn’t backwards. Some people think all their days are evil so they are. Some people have a cheerful heart and for them, life is a continual feast. Do you know someone like that? Someone who lives like life is a continual feast? Don’t you love being around people like that? That person you’re picturing, their life isn’t perfect. They have experienced tough times and loss and disappointments, but they are choosing to live each day with a cheerful heart. They have put their hope in the Lord.

And I think the last thing I want to say about that is, it will be easier to control our tongue when we control our thoughts.

Matthew 12:34 says Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Philippians 4:8- Think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.

If you want to know more about God and what he says about certain things, or what things you should pray for, ASK HIM. FILL YOURSELF UP WITH THE WORD.

Mark 4:24 Take care what you listen to- the more you listen, the more understanding you will be given.

James 1:5-8 if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.