CRITICALCRITICISM

Proverbs 18:20 KJV
A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.

Criticism may be the biggest verbal poison of our day. Do we really need to say to that person whatever we, in our own biased perspective perceive as an error, a mishandling or a mistake? And really, do we do it for the other person’s benefit? For God’s? Or merely to validate ourselves, inflate our ego, all in an effort to sustain our emotional balance and heal the hurt born of an inferiority complex? Or maybe, it comes from an uncontrollable desire to control (pun intended!). The truth is that the world will go on accomplishing the exact purposes of God with or without us.

How many wars, divorces, conflicts, divisions and just plain dramas are initiated and sustained just because we open this mouth of ours too wide and too often. James did tell us that he that offends not in words, the same is a perfect man. In the Scripture, the spoken word is compared to a knife, a fire, a hammer, a poison, just to name a few examples. Aren’t those things that need to be handled carefully? I

Whereas words that we speak seem abstract, in several proverbs, King Solomon teaches us that words define destiny, ours, and that of others. Yeshua and James in the apostolic Scriptures reiterated this same theme. Words, the spoken and the unspoken ones define both our present and our future. The fruits of our words, are the reaction that they create, and that we have to live with.

As the new Gregorian year approaches, people have a habit of making of making new resolutions. Let us remember the precious life-giving Words of our Master who said: It is not what goes in the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth.

May we learn to eat good fruits from the words that either come, or don’t come out of our mouth.