Our words make worlds! As a fantasy novelist, I get to see this truth in action in a figurative sense as I craft a world for others to enjoy. This proverb, though, holds so much more truth in the real world, and it is far more impactful, either to ruin or glory! To destruction and death or to hope and life. The words we speak to others can lift them up into a world they hadn’t even known existed within them, or crush them into the deepest pits of sorrow and despair.
When I was younger, I was reckless with my words to others. I often used my words to force my own will and spread my own misery. I used words to tear down others in an effort to make myself feel better. The crazy thing is, I usually didn’t realize I was doing it. I simply spat the poison that was inside my own soul, and let it wind its way into the hearts and minds of others.
Some years ago I got sick of living that miserable life. I made a decision to choose my words much more carefully. I decided the worlds I wanted to create in others were to be worlds of joy, hope, and peace. I wanted to create worlds of love and truth for others. I wanted to create the worlds in others that I wanted for my own life!
And so I began to build others up. I made a point of encouraging others and bringing them comfort and joy where they had none.
But there was a problem. The words I was speaking to others weren’t the words I was speaking to myself. While I was speaking life and vibrancy into others, I was still nourishing myself with the venom of the lies I had spoken to and about myself more times than I could possibly count. I was building worlds of hope and vigor into others, but I was still trapped in the world of my own misery while I repeated those lies to myself over and over again.
The words I spoke to myself were lies that I would never be good enough. Lies that I was a constant failure. Lies that I wasn’t worthy of love. Lies that my life was hopeless. Lies that I could never be myself. Lies that God, at best, tolerated me, and at worst regretted he ever made me. Lies that I had to strive constantly for the love and approval of others. Lies that, no matter what, I would be doomed to a life of misery, boredom, and death. Lies that I was not and could never be the person God created me to be!
I constantly believed the best for others, but never believed anything but the worst for myself. And in doing so, I had built into my own personal world a great tower of false identity–an orphaned, confused, “Woe is me!” waif of a spirit. I locked myself into that tower and threw away the keys.
At some point I realized that while speaking worlds of joy and vitality for others is important, speaking those worlds into myself is so critically necessary. It is literally life and death!
What a person speaks to themselves and believes of themselves will determine their future. If I continued using my words to keep myself locked in that tower of lies and hopelessness, then I would surely be killing myself more and more every day. If I changed my words and started speaking the same truth I believed for others over myself, then I could finally have the life I always dreamed of but was too afraid to seek it out.
Did I want to live? Or did I want to die? I decided I wanted to live! And so I took a long, hard look at the lies I had believed about myself for so long. I wrestled with them. I asked God about them. When I finally decided I could bear them no longer, I punched them in the nose and kicked them out of my world!
It was such a difficult journey to change the words I spoke over my own life. The journey was fraught with failures and errors. But I found that the more I brought others in to speak truth and life into me, the more I could do it for myself as well. So I changed who I allowed to speak into my life. I surrounded myself with people who would speak life into me, and who could believe in me while I learned how to believe in myself. I hung onto them like a lifeline, because that was who they were to me!
The journey felt impossible at times, and the effort was gargantuan! But it was so worth it! My old world of depression, sorrow, and anxiety is now dead and gone! Sometimes the ghosts of that world can try to haunt me and whisper old lies to me, but now that I know the truth, I am much better equipped to fight back and kick them out of my new world.
I now speak life and truth to myself. The truth is that I am good enough because God is with me! The truth is that I am successful, and I am living a life of success regardless of how many times I might fall down! The truth is that I am more worthy of love than I could possibly know because I am a child of my King! The truth is that I was born into a life of hope, dreams, and limitless possibilities! The truth is that I am uniquely and beautifully made! The truth is that God loves me more than I could ever dream or imagine! The truth is that I don’t have to strive for love because there is nothing I could ever do to make God love me any more or any less! The truth is that my life is overflowing with mystery, adventure, and more joy than I could ever know what to do with! The truth is that I AM a child of God already, and He is immensely proud of me!
These are the truths I remind myself of often. And these can be truths for you as well.
The truth is that the lies I struggled with and the world of sorrow and despair I built for myself are quite common among so many people. Many people believe even worse lies than these about themselves, and so have built worlds even more horrific for themselves.
But just as this is true, it is equally true that every single person can grab hold of the hope I did, and create a new world within themselves. The question is, which world will you start building within yourself?
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