A VERBAL CORNUCOPIA

Proverb 18:20-21 NIV 
20 From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled; 
    with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. 
21 The tongue has the power of life and death, 
    and those who love it will eat its fruit. 

One of the symbols of Thanksgiving is the cornucopia. It is a goat's horn overflowing with flowers, fruit, and corn. A cornucopia can be an abundant supply of good things. Such as, there will be a cornucopia of desserts at our Thanksgiving meal. So a good question is what cornucopia is being produced by our words? 

A powerful spiritual truth is found in verse 21. "The tongue has the power of life and death…" This is one of my favorite verses and something I have tried to follow for many years. Looking at this verse and verse 20, we see words that indicate that our mouth can help us or hurt us. 

Metaphors associated with our words are fruit, harvest, death, and life. Other translations use fruit and produce. But the overarching theme is that our words produce. Our words can be used to produce a harvest of good or a harvest of bad, but our words have impact. We can speak death to a situation or to a person, or we can speak life. We choose our words, and we choose our harvest. 

When I was in sales, Joy was good at speaking words of life to me as I would leave for work. She would tell me to have a great day and that I was going to sell something that day. Those are words of life. Those are words that produce light and hope. She could have told me that I had better sell something or we were going to be in trouble financially. She could have told me that maybe I was not cut out for sales and needed to do something else. We experienced highs and lows in my sales career, but Joy always spoke life. 

If we believe these two verses, it will make us evaluate what we are saying. In a world dominated by death and spiritual darkness, it is easy to speak death. I realize we are living in turbulent times, but we don't want to open the spigot on speaking negative, dark things. We can be aware without living in a negative flow. The challenge with speaking death is that it can bleed over into other areas of our world. We want to speak life to our important relationships, life to our future, and life to God's plan and help for us. You may be surprised at just how much you can lift your own spirit by speaking life. 

Last year, as we were worshipping in a Wednesday night service, the Lord impressed this thought on my heart. We need to speak like we sing. We sing about the goodness of God and His power and forgiveness. We sing about how we are what God says we are. We sing life-giving songs. One reason we are energized by praise and worship is that we are speaking life. So, if we can do this in a song, we need to do this in our life when we are outside of church. We can speak of God's goodness and mercy and power. We can speak of His help and that we are who He has made us in Christ. We sing good stuff so we can speak good stuff. We can speak life. 

So, do a word audit as we approach the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. What are you saying about the important areas of your life? What do you need to adjust? What do you need to stop saying? Our words can produce a harvest of good or a harvest of bad. I love the good; that's the fruit I want to eat. 

PRAYER 

Lord, please alert me to my words, especially the negative ones that are hurting me and my sphere of influence. I choose to speak life in every area of my life.