Your
Kindness
Will
Reward You,
But
Your Cruelty Will Destroy You.
Scripture
Proverbs
11
Observation
You
and I can belittle (To
belittle someone is a cruel way of making someone else seem less
important than yourself),
and we can be cruel to both our spouse and/or to our children.
But
if we do put them down, if we are cruel to them, then we, not them,
are the ones who are the fool and our cruelty the Bible says, “will
destroy us” and, I might add, terribly damages the very ones we
love! Lets think about how we talk to one another.
Lets
especially think about how we talk to our children and the way we
talk to our spouse. There are times when we just need to keep our
mouths shut.
While
we were out at the beach I made a mean comment to Kathy and the
unkind comment of course hurt her feelings. You would think that
after 48+ years of marriage I would have learned not to do that. I
did know that it was wrong as soon as the words left my mouth.
My
friend, that one dumb stupid and totally unnecessary comment completely wiped out a lot of good positive things that I had said and had done
with Kathy during the week. If I had only been sensible and if I had
only kept my mouth shut.
So
I share this with you because maybe it will help you to see that what
we say and how we say what we say really does matter.
Once
those words leave our mouth … we can't take them back … our
kindness will reward us, but our cruelty will destroy us.
Lets
watch how we talk to the ones that we love!
Proverbs
12:18
Ephesians
6:4
Fathers,
don’t exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take
them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.
Ephesians
4:32
Make
a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle
with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and
thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
Application
I
will be careful how I talk to my wife, my kids, and my grandkids. How
about you?
Psalm
19:14
May
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to
You, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
Prayer
Heavenly
Father, help me to guard my mouth. Don't let me say things that are
unkind, that are cruel, that are mean and hurtful. Bring conviction
to my heart the moment I say something that is hurtful, and help me
to ask the person immediately for their forgiveness. Give me the
inner strength to tell them that I am sorry and the courage to ask
them to forgive me.
I
realize that I am so much unlike You when what I say hurtful
and unkind things to someone else. I am a sinner. I am broken. But
... there is no excuse for bad behavior – none. Thank You, that You
love me just the way I am, but I know that You love me too much to
let me stay the way I am. I am definitely a work in progress. Lord,
keep chipping away on me!
Daily
Bible Reading: Isaiah 11,12,13,14; Hebrews 9; I added Psalm 11,
Psalm 31, Proverbs 11
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