The biggest lie ever taught is, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." I think it's fair to say we have all proved this little saying false.

Words can be used to build people and situations up, and they can cause the deepest wounds a soul can endure. Not only do other people's words affect us, but our own words significantly impact our lives and our success in life.

However, the focus of this blog and podcast is our families. The words we speak in our homes are often less filtered than when talking with friends or co-workers. Therefore, family units can be torn apart with nothing more than unbridled, hurtful words.

Be a Listener

One of the biggest parts of communication is not on the talking end but on the listening end. We tend to only think about what we want to say next and disengage from actual communication. One-way communication is called a rant (or a tantrum)!

Bryce and I have learned that the best communication, even though hard to do, is to take a step back from what you want to say and mirror what the other person said. This helps the other person feel validated and heard. I talk about how to do this in this blog…

The Power of Your Words

Proverbs 18:20-21 says, "A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit."

We have the power, through our words, to cultivate love in our relationships or to tear them down with words of destruction. Bryce and I made a rule early in our marriage that we weren't allowed to say divorce or even joke about separating. Why? Because those words allow a little crack for the devil to weasel his little toe into and begin to try to bring it to pass.

Communication with our children is just as vital. When we discipline kids, we should never use our words to demean them by telling them they are stupid or worthless. No, we need to wrap all our words with love. You can be firm and follow through with discipline without using derogatory speech. As I talked about commitment last week on the blog, when we promise something to our children, we need to follow through with what we have said, whether it's a consequence or reward.

Take an Inventory

A simple way to inventory your words is to follow a statement: "And that's the way I want it." For example, "I never lose weight – and that's just how I want it!" Or "My kids never listen – and that's just how I want it!" Wow! If you start to do that, you will quickly realize if your words contain "life" or "death." This might seem silly, but the Bible says we frame our world with words. In other words, your words create the framework for what you will see come to pass.

When Bryce and I decided to go into ministry, there were so many people who would jokingly tell us that our kids would be rebellious teenagers. I'm sure if we had laughed along and agreed with them that most pastor's kids are rebellious, and we just hope our kids don't rebel too bad, we probably would have gotten just that. However, that is not what this momma did! I retorted very matter-of-factly my children would not be rebellious. I said they would be awesome teenagers and those years will be so much fun. And you know what? They were! The teenage years were some of the best years with our children. None of them were rebellious, and they are currently all serving God faithfully.

Now, we didn't just speak those words, and, poof, our kids turned out great, like a magic formula! No, we spent years of training them. They were hard years of enduring power struggles and 24/7, consistent, loving discipline.

Guard Your Mouth

Proverbs 21:23 says, "Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles." This means you will save yourself a lot of heartache and trouble if you guard what you say.

You might think this is a little extreme, but we were created in the image of God. And how did God create the world? He spoke it into existence. In fact, scientists have found that the very center of all matter is sound waves! Pretty cool, huh? I'm sure you have seen the science experiments of what happens to a plant when you speak positive, negative, or ignore it. The positive words produced a beautiful green plant. The negative words made the plant sick and die despite having the same water and sunlight as the other plant. And the one that was ignored didn't die, but it didn't look very good. All of that with just words.

I want to challenge all of us to stand guard over what we say. Realize that our words carry life or death; we are responsible as Christians to speak words of life and light in our dark worlds.

If your relationship with your spouse or children isn't what you would like, start speaking life over them regardless of what you actually see. Begin to say things you want to see in your life by faith using God's Word and watch the darkness turn to light.