THE POSITIVE SNARE

THE POSITIVE SNARE

Proverbs 6:2

Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth; thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

A snare is something one uses to catch unsuspecting prey. To be taken means one is forced somewhere against his will.

James has a lot to say about the tongue in chapter three. He talks about blessing and cursing coming from the same mouth. In his opinion the tongue is an unruly evil full of deadly poison.

How much power do our words hold? We write beautiful, interesting stories for the world to read, hoping we bring something good to their lives; yet I listen to the people around me, and for the most part all I hear are negative things. “I hate my job, I am so fat, my hair looks awful, I’ll never be able to do that, I just know I’ve got Cancer, I’m going to die young all the men in my family die young etc…”

What about the things we say about others? For instance, a car is driving down the road speeding. It passes in a curve. Are the first words out of our mouth, “ look at that idiot, he is going to find himself wrapped around a tree if he doesn’t slow down”?  Five miles down the road we see the same car in a ditch with policemen all around it. Did our words snare that poor man? What if his little girl was very ill and he was rushing her to the hospital. If we turned the situation around and our words were, “Father please protect that person and get them safely where they are going”, would it have made a difference? Is it second nature instead to wear a satisfied smirk and say,” See what did I tell you?”  Do our words give the enemy power by speaking things into being? God’s word says we are snared by the words of our mouth.

Take the news for instance, how many times do you hear a feel good positive story off the news? Nearly everything that is “NEWS” is negative. If we listen to negative all day long that is what will come out of our mouth. I rarely listen to the news for that very reason. I want to hear things that lift me up. I know that we have to be aware of things going on in the world, but I wish there was only one or two negative stories and a day full of happy endings. That’s what most of us write. Wouldn’t it be great if that were how we lived every day?

I challenge you to think before you speak and if your words are negative, stop them before you make a snare for yourself or someone else. Turn it around into something Jesus would be proud for us to say. If we’re going to be snared let it be with positive words. I just know that will irritate the devil to no end and that makes me happy!