The Impact Of Words

Never in the history of the world have words been so cheap, quick, irrevocable, and viral. Through cell phones and the Internet, we now have texting, email, instant messaging, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In addition, we have radio, television, and printed media. Words are flying around in the atmosphere like never before. As of June 2010, 77.2 percent of all Americans use the Internet (267 million people). One quarter of the world's population is online. Forty-one percent of all Americans actively maintain a profile page on Facebook, which generates one billion pieces content every single day. U.S. awareness if Twitter has exploded from 5 percent in 2008 to 87 percent in 2010, and by now the figures are even greater. In 2010, more than 17 million Americans used Twitter and the average number of "tweets" per day in the United States alone was 15.5 million.

Obviously, there are good uses of all these forms of communication; however, there are many disturbing consequences, including online bullying that that has led to teenage suicide, identity theft, child safety risk, pornography addiction, and ruined careers. Job applicants lose out because of Facebook accounts of bad behavior; workers send ill-advised emails before thinking.

People have destroyed relationships by typing their most secret thoughts in e-mail an then pressing Send before realizing how revealing the message was. Owing to the information available today, personal privacy has all but vanished. Sadly, anyone can say anything about an individual whether it is true or not...and it is out there floating around in cyberspace just waiting for someone to access the information. People's reputations have been destroyed by what others have said and yet their words held no truth at all. You might say that we have a "word explosion" going on. and we have yet to learn the power of words and make a commitment to use them in a godly way.

I am sure you have heard someone day, "You are going to eat those words." It may sound like mere statement to us, but in reality we do eat our words. What we say not only affects others, but also affects us. Words are wonderful when used in a proper way. They can encourage, deify, and give confidence to the hearer. A right word spoken at the right time can actually be life changing.

A man has joy in making an apt answer, and a word ken at the right moment...how good it is! -Proverbs 15:23

We can literally increase our own joy by speaking right words. We can also upset ourselves by talking unnecessarily about our problems or things that have hurt us in relationships. The words that come out of our mouths go into our own ears as well as other people's, and then they drop down into our soul, where they give us either joy or sadness, peace or upset, depending on the types of words we have spoken. Our words can even oppress our spirit. God desires that our spirits be light and free so it can function properly, not heavy and oppressed.


Listen to this song...