Words

My Aunt Marge and Vin Scully

For those who follow sports, particularly baseball, Vin Scully is a household name. Having retired a just a few weeks ago, Vin was the radio voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team for the last 67 years, dating back to their days as the Brooklyn Dodgers. My great aunt, Margaret Gardner, was a well known artist in the Chicago area for many years. hundreds-if not thousands-of aspiring painters were students at her art school. For years Aunt Marge also went to go to Chicago-area elementary schools, giving chalk talks to countless boys and girls.  Her works were displayed in such places as the Chicago Art Institute.

Although Aunt Marge and Vin Scully never met both were gifted, artistically speaking. Both were painters, with astonishing results. yet only my Aunt Marge used paint.

What's my point? My point is that both possessed the ability to create recognizable pictures: Aunt Marge with paint, pencil, chalk, and charcoal; Vin with words. One created a picture onto a blank canvas or piece of paper; the other created a picture for his audience, using simple, illustrative words. Using words, Vin could give you the impression that you were at the ball park, able to watch the action unfold before you. You "saw" the game through Vin's words. With Aunt Marge you saw on canvas what she saw when it was blank.

So it is with some of us. I'd love to be able to draw like an artist, but that's not my gift. The last time I saw Aunt Marge, my attempt to draw a horse resulted in a new species of dog. Her horse was drawn in about 10 seconds.

You may not be an Aunt Marge but you're creating pictures with your words, everyday. You may not be a Vin Scully, but people are being drawn to or repelled by your words, everyday.Through words, God has given you the ability to create an atmosphere of faith, love, healing, and encouragement around you, even to the point of affecting others. You can choose to speak positive words, as found in God's Word, or pollute your life with words of doubt, fear, strife, and unforgiveness.

I've purposed to do better with my tongue-my paintbrush if you will-in speaking words of life, healing, and forgiveness. It's an ongoing commitment, one I believe is well worth it.

Who'll join me?

© Hubert Gardner Ministries 2016-2024

 

 

Your Mouth is a Dispenser

Back in the 1950s candy dispensers were popular with children, myself included. One would load the dispenser with rectangular pieces of candy, pull back on the head (often a cartoon character), and eat what the head dispensed. All that for a piece of flavored sugar. In a very real sense, our mouths are dispensers: dispensers of love, joy, and faith, or fear, doubt, and negativity. Instead of candy, however, our mouths are dispensing words. Those words are releasing sounds into the atmosphere, sounds which are being heard by those around us, as well as ourselves.

What kind of words are our mouths "dispensing" on an everyday basis? When a challenge presents itself how are we responding-or reacting-to the challenge? Are we dispensing words of "I don't know what to do", "Why is this happening to me?", or "This is __________fault." Or, are we training ourselves to respond with God's Words, such as "Greater is He Who's in me (First John 4:4) than this challenge (i.e.doctor's report, unexpected bill, loss of job) before me;" "God always causes me to triumph in Christ  (2 Corinthians 2:14);" "I'm more than a conqueror, through Christ (Romans 8:37)?"

The truth is our mouths are dispensing words of life or death (Proverbs 18:21). Every day our mouths are filling the atmosphere around us with what we say, either positive or negative; sometimes both. What's so interesting is that we choose what we say in everyday conversation. We are controlling the dispensing of words out of our mouths.

I think everyone wants to say right words; few are bent on being verbal "cesspools." For those of us who want to say the right words, it's a matter of guarding our words, making sure that our mouths are dispensing life, encouragement, blessing, and healing.

Your mouth is a dispenser, as is mine. I'm working on dispensing  God's Word out of the abundance of my heart, eliminating the negative being spoken out of my mouth. I invite you to join me in this profitable journey, for life.

What are some practical ways you're finding/have found to control the words being dispensed out of your mouth? What has been the result of the changes in your life?

What's In Your Budget?

A lot of people budget nowadays. Whether by a family, couple, or single person, budgets help to monitor how/where household income is spent. What's in your budget? If you're like most "budgeters" things like food, mortgage or rent (if applicable), utilities, vehicle fuel/maintenance, as well as cleaning supplies are on your budget list.

When something is outside your budget, at least for the moment, one has to decide whether that item is really needed. If yes, something else will need to be reduced or eliminated. Easier said than done, right?

But there's another kind of budget I want us to think about: it's our words budget. What about our words? What about those everyday words and phrases we've been saying for ever so long? Do they need changing, or even  elimination? Can our words be budgeted to speak positively, eliminating what's negative-even harmful?

Words are important to all of us. We either encourage or discourage with what we say. We either lift up or tear down with what comes out of our mouth. No one makes us say what we do; it's our choice. Every time.

You may or may not have a financial budget to monitor where your money goes-how it gets spent. But everyone can budget what comes out of their mouth. Perhaps it's time to think about prioritizing what you say, leaving off words which are unhealthy for you. I'm including myself in this as well, as I need to improve in this area.

What are some ways you know to reduce, change, eliminate, or improve your "word" budget. What would you recommend others do that, if you've already done this, worked for you? Remember, what helps/helped you can help someone else.

© Hubert Gardner Ministries 2016-2024

So, What Are You Saying?

Overall, Christians-even some non Christians-believe that God's words are important; what God says matters. After all, God is, well, God. But what about your words? How important are your words? What difference does it make what you say? In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 12, God says through Jeremiah that He (God) watches over His word to perform it (make it good). That means God cares an awful lot about what comes out His mouth. God really cares about His words.

Why is this? One good reason is that God recognizes and understands the importance of words, what comes out of His mouth. God understands how creative words are, how that words have the ability to create what's seen, out of the unseen (naturally speaking).

What about you? How important are your words? As a Christian, a child of God, how important is it to watch over what comes out of your mouth? Realizing that, like God, your words are creative, are your words creating good or bad, encouragement or discouragement?  According to Proverbs 18:21, are you speaking words of death, or life?  Yes, this verse is actually in the Bible.

What am I saying in all this? I'm saying that words matter, that your words matter just as much as God's. God spoke the worlds into existence. God, according to Hebrew 1:3 is holding up all things by the word of His power. Imitating our Father, our words are creating an environment-a world-around us. Like Father, like son or daughter. Your words do make a difference in your life, and in the lives of those around you. If wars can start with words, so reconciliation, restoration, and renewal can start with the right words.

So, what are you saying? How important is it to say good things, to the point of saying what God says about the situation?

 

How's Your Framing?

For a few months I worked as a framer, a carpenter's helper on a construction crew. Once the foundation was ready our job was to frame both the outside and inside walls of the home we were building, With enough workers and decent weather, we could frame a two-story home in under two weeks. Framing changed a flat foundation into the beginnings of rooms, closets, and the garage. As a framer I used a lot of wood and nails, an electric saw, and my 24-ounce framing hammer. Building your life on a solid foundation is great (for more on foundations watch our Life Change episodes). The best foundations, however, still need something on them to fulfill their purpose. For a home it starts by framing bedrooms, kitchen, living, and laundry areas, plus a garage and bathrooms. For your life it starts by "framing" it with what God says about you in His Word.

Your life should be "framed" with God's Word concerning peace, walking in love, health, and prosperity. Your life will include  framing of individual direction, from God's Holy Spirit. Whether it's business, ministry, sports, teaching, or other field of endeavor, a whole lot of framing has, hopefully, been going. Not with wood, nails, and hand tools, but with words-those things you speak. Words which are framing, covering, and reinforcing the "rooms" of your life. Your life is being framed-outlined-by the everyday words you have been/are saying about yourself. Good or bad, positive or negative,  your words are creating your life room by room, so to speak.

What are you saying about yourself? Whose words are you allowing to dominate your thinking and, thus, your speaking? The media's? Your relatives'? God's? Successful framing of your life includes saying what God says about you in the New Testament epistles, letters written to fellow Christians. That's the best place to find out who you are and what you have, as God's child.

So, how's your framing? How are the rooms of your life coming along? Whose words are being used to frame your life?