When I was on the World Race, I was walking with a friend one day, and I made a comment about having bad knees like my mom does. She told me not to say things like that because my words are powerful, and sometimes we can even speak things into existence. This was a concept I had never really considered, but even then I could admit that the words I said were powerful, both in my own life and others’. After she told me that, I began to dig more into the statement, particularly what the Bible had to say about our words. 

Life or Death?

There is a verse in the Bible that says, “The tongue has the power of life and death…” (Proverbs 18:21). Later, in the New Testament, James talks about how the tongue is a small part of the body but it has a lot of control. He compares the tongue to the bit on a horse’s reins and the rudder on a ship (James 1). 

After my teammate made the above statement, these verses took on a new meaning for me. I began to look at the words that I said to others and myself and analyze them more. Were they words of life or words of death? The Lord used that simple moment to shine a different light on the words I spoke, especially to and about myself. 

My Biggest Critic

If you’ve read any of my other blogs, you have probably picked up on the fact that I struggle with several things, one being low self-esteem and poor self-image. For most of my life, I have been my own biggest critic, and I wasn’t gentle or nice with what I said to myself. I put myself down for not being outgoing enough, and I told myself I was too quiet and that people would never take the time to get to know me because there was no point. The words I spoke to or about myself were negative and harsh, and sometimes they were downright hateful. I would never say such things about other people, and if someone else used those words about herself, I would have been upset and called her out for it. 

[Related posts — Living with Anxiety and Depression: Part 1 and Part 2]

While I knew it was wrong for others to do, but I didn’t believe that for myself. I saw it as helping myself to grow, or simply telling myself what I saw as the truth. Yet, what I was really doing was speaking words of death over myself again and again. 

The words might not have caused physical death, but over time they were killing my soul. They were trapping me in a box of anxiety and depression. The words I spoke were causing me to isolate myself and were leading to poor decisions. That may not be literal death, but there were moments when I felt like I was dead inside or thought death would be better than what I was feeling while alive. 

Speaking Truth

When I realized the authority my words carried, I better saw the connection between what I said and how I felt. I was tired of feeling dead and depressed; instead, I wanted to feel alive, so I knew I had to change the way I spoke to myself. I had to speak in a loving way to myself, like I would speak to a friend. At times, this meant speaking words to myself that I didn’t even believe with the hope that I would eventually believe their truth for myself. I had to tell myself I was worthy of love, not because I always felt that way, but because that’s what other people said and most importantly what God said. 

 

This was no cure-all for my struggle with anxiety and depression, but I can say with confidence that it helped. In moments when I was feeling really down and beating myself up for something, I would speak words of authority, whether in my head or out loud. And these words would usually help the feelings to shrink to a more manageable level, a place where I could think more logically. Sometimes I could speak these things once, and sometimes it would take me speaking them over and over again. 

There is no magic formula to make our struggles disappear, no matter what they may be. But I have found that choosing to speak words of life instead of words of death makes a big difference in how I view myself, therefore making a big difference in my struggles with self-esteem, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, etc. Remind yourself often: your words are powerful!

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