Elul 26 :: Say the Word

It just seems that I cannot read or hear anything about the power of words without the song The Word from the 1965 Beatles album Rubber Soul sticking in my brain. Sadly, it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything, it just gets stuck there, like an earworm – likely a result of my having played it so many times when I was (much) younger.

Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love

In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I've got it, the word is good

Like I said, it's absurd. But it does illustrate my point about the power that words have on our mind. It is the same whether words are positive or negative, and I am sure all of us have heard plenty of negative words spoken over us in our lifetimes.

Indeed, the brother of Jesus/Yeshua, apostle James has this to say about the power of our words:

For we all stumble in many matters. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man… the tongue is a little member, yet boasts greatly… no man is able to tame the tongue. It is unruly, evil, filled with deadly poison. With it we bless our Elohim and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of Elohim. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brothers, this should not be so. – James 3:2-10 (The Scriptures 2009)

In considering today’s Elul devotional from The Rabbi’s Son, entitled Words That Carry the Weight of His Glory, the theme centers around the practice of using "ordinary, uninspired words – words of opinion, theory, gossip, vanity, political debate and philosophy and... cliché religion" versus using the words given to us by YHVH, which have the power to change hearts or alter the course of history, as with the words Moses spoke to Pharaoh.

Imagine: YHVH is ready, willing, and more than able to download His words, that carry the weight of His glory, into the hearts and mouths mouths "of absolutely anyone who will surrender to His calling, go where He tells them to go, and say what He tells them to say."

As one of my old pastors used to say, "Yes, but how?" Well, I would offer that it takes surrender, it takes prayer, and it takes practice. As a recovering sarcastic, I would add - it takes keeping your mouth shut until you have take a few seconds to consider what your words sound like to the person on the receiving end. Are they true? Are they uplifting? Are they edifying?