Hi Everyone,
Well it is a lovely Saturday evening in Daytona beach. I decided to listen to a Wednesday night service by Jack Hibbs, a pastor I’ve been following.
I’m sure many of you have ascertained that words matter to me. I take extreme care in how I use words and how I convey them and sometimes use more words than most. I remember when I first met the editor of my book and she said "Cari, more words. Life is layered; words layer." She said "more is best, don’t worry, leave the editing to me." So I did. Layers upon layers. And the end result was God's epistle. But tonight, I heard something I’ve always believed: the care with words is critical, as they can cut and impact for a lifetime or they can build-up and impact for a lifetime.
Sometimes it is too easy to think trite of words. Yet, every word we say lands on the surface of a human heart - even on one that is rock hard. Words have a mysterious way of breaking through - that’s the good part. However, on a pliable heart - one open to the Lord - words can build-up or shatter in a moment because that heart is soft. In my book I was cautious to convey my experience; every word was my story and every word "covered those" that were somewhat negative to the story. I realized tonight that every word God spoke through His Word is precise and deliberate. It cuts properly so as not to destroy, and builds up properly so as not to feed pride. I believe that’s why God said to not add or take away from it. Why? Because every word is guided by the Holy Spirit with laser focus to land on a human heart at the right and perfect time with precision impact.
The caution for me in my humanness - don’t go ahead of God's Word with my own conjecture; make sure what lands will build-up vs. destroy. Make sure I speak from the perspective of my intimacy with God and not from a broken framework of self or self protection or worst of all pride. I also realized there is only One who has the last word - there is only One who declares the finale of our lives. There is only One who declares who we really are. So the caution for me is to stay in line with His declarations for myself and certainly towards another, and recognize the real winner is Christ who has the last word for our lives!