In reading Rick Horne’s Get Outta My Face!, I came across Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”   Horne comments on this verse:

What we speak can encourage or discourage, energize or dishearten.  How we speak to our teens and what we say can exasperate and infuriate, or communicate hope and anticipation.  Truly, our words tend to influence our hearers toward the most radical of extremes:  either death or life.  (p. 147)

This was extremely enlightening for me.  My spoken words can either bring life or death.  They are indeed powerful.  This verse convicted my heart because I know I’ve failed many times in how I speak to my children.  The tone and the words I used brought on discouragement in my children.  Even though they didn’t tell me how they felt, I knew my words brought death and not life.

It is my deepest desire to encourage my children, but in my haste and busyness, I have often been a source of words of death in my house, thus harming my children.  The Word of God is very convicting and penetrating.  When we truly grasp the severity of our spoken words, by God’s grace, may we do our very best to only communicate with words that bring life and not death.  May we always be mindful of what comes out of our mouths.