Walking With Christ

Proverbs 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.(ESV)

We often love to talk about life being in the power of the tongue while skipping over the part about death being there as well.  Life is usually understood as blessings, praise reports, praise, and prayer requests.  Death isn’t just the opposite of those things though.  Death in the power of the tongue can be words said in doubt for sure, but what about silence.  Isn’t silence also in the power of the tongue?

There are times when we let our doubts and fears get in the way of us speaking life into situations.  We are afraid that if we speak life into the situation then it doesn’t happen, that means that there is something wrong with us or that we are not connected to the Word as well as we thought.  We might be afraid of building up hope on things that are not the will of God.  We often fear that we might get blamed for the trauma of lost hope when what is prayed for does not happen.

This is a trick of the enemy.  The enemy wants us to not ask for things hoped for out of fear.  This is the death by silence.  There are a great many instances where God might want to do something in our lives but we are not willing to let Him move for us.  Whether it’s doubts that we are worthy, fear of some sort, or even the presence of actual sin preventing us from being heard, the things we say and the things we don’t say truly do matter.  Often times hope is just beneath the surface and just needs a little encouragement to break through the surface.