WORDS WITH FRIENDS

Words are little things. Little but powerful. You can build someone up with them or tear someone down. You can use them for good or for evil. You can build a reputation or destroy one, yours or someone else's. You can challenge or heal with them. You can make peace. You can make war.

How you choose to use your words can change the lives of your friends or your own life. It's amazing how much just letting someone know you are thinking about them can mean. Try to be sensitive to God leading you to speak up. If God brings someone to my mind I usually take it to mean he wants me to either pray for them or talk to them and most of the time it's both. It's a simple thing to send a quick text. "What's up?" "Have a great day!" "I'm praying for you!" "I love you!" "God loves you!" None of those take very long to send and yet can transport a friend to a more positive place. We have so many ways of shooting a quick encouragement to someone it's a shame we don't do it more often.  Often these quick encouragements open the door for a longer conversation.

If you have more time you might meet for lunch or coffee. It's a little more work to arrange sometimes but it's so neat to get together face to face for some friend time. When you get together concentrate on being a good listener. Ask questions about your friends life. Don't use this as a platform for backing up the word truck and dumping a load. You don't always have to have an agenda or answers. Just hang out.

Back in Bible times they didn't have all the communication methods we have. They either talked face to face at the water well, in the fields, or at the city gates. Or they sent letters. The New Testament has lots of those letters. Letters to friends. Read through them sometime from the viewpoint of someone who was a friend of the writer. They are chock full of encouragement, advice, challenges, instruction, and sometimes they are kicking butt! There's a place for all that among friends

The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament has tons to say about words and the people that use them. Some of it isn't very nice. The book of Job has a lot to show us about well meaning but wrong advice from friends.

Encouraging one another should be easy. Sometimes the easier things get left unsaid because they are too easy to do. Don't neglect encouragement. It just takes a minute to make someone's day better. The Bible says we should rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep. Most of the time that's going to involve spoken words and hugs.

We should also be challenging each other to be better, do better, excel more. We should encourage each other to live the life that Christ died to give us. Does that mean we are judging? On the contrary, challenging each other to do right isn't judging; it's loving enough to say the hard things. If you are running toward a cliff you are probably going to have to have lunch with Momma Pam if I know about it. We each need saving from our stupidity from time to time. All of us go astray or can focus on the wrong thing. We get stronger as we lovingly counsel each other in right living. It's hard sometimes to be bold enough to do this. No one likes rejection and I think that's what holds us back. But that means I'm loving me more than I love you. That's not right.

Blessed are the peacemakers. This is a tough one. We should use our words to help each other get along. I'm not saying we should get involved in every little spat, but if there is something going on that effects the whole body or a good-sized chunk we should follow the Biblical plan for peacemaking. Quarreling Christians hurts our witness to the world around us. If the world is to know us by our love for one another then public arguments hurt the cause of Christ. We need to stick up for each other.

We can use our words negatively without even really thinking about it.  We do this by spreading arguments, participating in gossip (even listening to it), grumbling, being negative. We can ruin reputations with our bad words. We can steal someone's joy.

Every day we have choices to make about how we use our words. We can use our words for ourselves, to get what we want and have our own needs met. Or we can choose to spend some of our words on our brothers and sisters. We can encourage and challenge each other to live rightly, to do good, and to spread the love of Christ to a world that's so in need of kindness.

EVALUATE:  How many of your words each day do you spend on you?  How many of your words are positive and uplifting? How often do you take the time to encourage someone?

CHALLENGES: 
Read the letter scriptures in the New Testament as though they were written to you by your friends Paul and Peter.  Pretend you are Timothy or Titus.
Read Proverbs.  They are so relevant for today's world.
Use the technology that makes it so easy to send a quick encouragement to someone at least once a day.
Get face to face with a friend at least once a week and listen. Use words only when necessary. Sometimes the best encouragement is to just listen. If God wants you to say something He'll let you know.
Use your words wisely.

Oops! I think I just unloaded the truck.