Be Careful What You Hear, See, and Say
Have you ever wished that you could take these monkey’s lead in how you conduct yourself in life? I know I have. It’s like a moment frozen in time. Take speaking for instance. I am listening to someone or watching something, and before I realize it, I have opened my mouth, inserted my size 12+ foot in it, and just chewed on it for a while. Maybe you can related.
If we want our lives to prosper even as our soul prospers, we must protect and nurture our soul. Here are three things we can do to help see that our soul prospers:
1) Be careful what you hear. Whatever your ears hear, your brain remembers – even at a subconscious level. If you expose yourself to people, media, and conversations that are continually negative, inappropriate, or rated R, you will eventually find yourself slipping into and living in those arenas of life. This is especially true in relationships. If you associate with people who have a predisposition towards pessimism and negativity, you will eventually find yourself influenced by them – or at very least they will empty your cup and leave you feeling drained. Ultimately, what you hear will affect what you think about or dwell on. (see Philippians 4:8).
2) Be careful what you look at. The mind has the ability to remember everything your eyes see. If you continually expose yourself to adult-oriented, hate-filled or violence-filled movies, or television shows, you will begin to reap the fruit of these things in your life through the erosion of your thought life and eventually, your actions will reflect what you have exposed your heart to. “I made a covenant with my eyes…” (see Job 31:1).
3) Be careful what you say. Your words are powerful. You will ultimately bare the fruit of your words. In other words, what you confess the most will come upon you. Speak life and encouragement, and you will find that these things will come to you as well. Speak death, discouragement, doubt, worry, fear, complaining, grumbling, and criticism, and you will end up reaping the same in your own life from others. As relationships go, what you say can bring life to it or death. Choose life. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths,…” (see Ephesian 4:29).
