Do you often feel like you have nothing to say that anyone really wants to hear? Or do you feel like no matter what you say, it goes in one ear and out the other?
Sometimes the reason we’ve lost our voice is spiritual, sometimes it is wounding we’ve held onto, and sometimes it is just plain our own fault!
Sometimes the reason we’ve lost our voice is spiritual, sometimes it is wounding we’ve held onto, and sometimes it is just plain our own fault!
But no matter what the reason is behind your lost voice, we can get to the root of it and get you back to being heard.
Today we’ll talk about the practical steps you can take to determine what you might have done wrong in the past, and how to change whether people want to hear you or not.
If you have been so desperate to be heard that you haven’t listened to others, if you interrupt or add your 2 cents, or don’t acknowledge what someone else has said but just plow right into your own opinion, then you are not treating people the way you want to be treated, and you need to change this before anyone will want to hear you!
Do you want to listen to people who don’t care about your opinion? No one else does either, so if you have been a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal by not speaking (or listening) in love, this is the time to change that! Recognize that you need to prefer someone else’s words over your own and stop fighting for the chance to be heard (Romans 12:10) before anyone else will want to hear you.
Have you spoken words that have kept you in bitterness over this? Do you have an expectation that no one will want to hear you, so you say things like, “No one cares what I say, anyway!” You need to break that vow and expectation through prayer, because you are defiling yourself and others in the process. (Hebrews 12:15)
How are you coming across when you speak? Are you shy, cowering, unsmiling, grumpy, or sullen? The look on your face and the way you approach a conversation will determine whether others want to hear you or not. Look at yourself in the mirror and practice! Yes, this seems odd, but people respond to smiles and eye contact and an approachable face, and the tend to back away from harsh looks.
In a few days, we’ll talk about some of the spiritual reasons you have been silenced. But practice some of these practical ways to get your words across to others and let me know if you start to see a change.
Is your focus the fruit that is produced? Or is your focus the seed that has been planted? Or is your focus the soil that will receive the seed?
We hunger to produce good fruit! We desire the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. We wonder why we aren’t patient; we feel shame when we aren’t gentle. But do we remember that those things come based on what we have participated in? That fruit is produced when we are filled, surrounded, taught by, and saturated in the Spirit. They are a consequence of what we put in; they are NOT just what automatically pops out! (Galatians 5:22-23)
You don’t get patient by scrolling Facebook.
You don’t become kind from participating in gossip.
You aren’t filled with peacefulness if you’ve soaked in the latest news.
We are condemned by our words because they display the health of our hearts. (Matthew 12:33-37)
Let’s look at Matthew 13:14-17
The seed determines what grows, but if the soil isn’t healthy, then no matter how good the seed is, there will not be fruit. Our soil needs to be soft and pliable. The trampled, hard places need to be tilled. The rocky soil needs to soft and deep, the thorns and thistles need to be pulled out, if all this work isn’t done, the soil will not be ready to receive the seed.
Everyone one of these wrong hearted conditions points to someone who HEARD the Word. It wasn’t about ignoring the Word or going our own way.
The first heart condition was a trampled, hard heart that had become insensitive, and couldn’t understand the Word that was spoken. Yeshua called this seed that had fallen by the road.
The first heart condition was a trampled, hard heart that had become insensitive, and couldn’t understand the Word that was spoken. Yeshua called this seed that had fallen by the road.
The second heart condition was the rocky, shallow soil. This person also heard the Word and even received it with joy, but affliction and persecution because of that Word stole it away.
The third heart condition was soil full of thorns. This person also heard the Word, but the worries of the world and the deceitful cares of riches choked the Word before fruit could be produced.
What we’ve learned here is that the words that come out of our mouth, and the actions we choose to display, come from so much more than just hearing the Word! If we are not hearing and seeing with understanding, then our heart is not soft enough to receive the Word, and then our heart will not be ready to turn to Him to be healed. (Isaiah 6:9-10)
An unhealed heart will always struggle to speak good words. Trying to speak good words while your heart is still wounded, is what exposes you as an actor.
Does that mean we shouldn’t care about the words that come out of our mouths? NO, there is still death and life in the power of those words. But if speaking good words is a source of shame because you just can’t do it, then we need to look deeper, there is an issue there, there is a wound, that is keeping you from authenticity!
If your heart is murky your words will be murky; to change the words, change the heart: to change the heart, change what goes into the heart; to change what goes into the heart, change what you listen to and watch; to change what you listen to and watch, seek for the hidden treasure of understanding! The soil around hidden treasure is always soft, because has been dug up and worked with!
Time to move to Proverbs 2:1-12
To be able to have the understanding necessary to receive the seed into the soil of our heart, we need to seek for it like the hidden treasure that it is! Understanding, discernment, and wisdom come by going on a treasure hunt. We must seek for it with all that is in us! Once we have understanding, then our soil is ready to receive the Word we hear, then the things that come out of our heart based on its fullness with be the good fruit we are hungering for!
To be able to have the understanding necessary to receive the seed into the soil of our heart, we need to seek for it like the hidden treasure that it is! Understanding, discernment, and wisdom come by going on a treasure hunt. We must seek for it with all that is in us! Once we have understanding, then our soil is ready to receive the Word we hear, then the things that come out of our heart based on its fullness with be the good fruit we are hungering for!
It’s time to NOT focus on changing your words…
What?!
Can you believe I just said that?
What?!
Can you believe I just said that?
If you know me at all, you know that I believe that life and death are in the power of the tongue, and that words have a huge influence on our lives. Let’s look at some verses that tell us our words are important, then we’ll go a bit deeper. Proverbs 18:20-21, Matthew 12:37, Proverbs 13:2-3, Proverbs 21:23, Ecclesiastes 10: 12-14 are just a small sampling of verses that talk about the importance of life giving words.
These verses tell us what comes from evil words, and what comes from good words. We learn that words have the power to give life, we learn that our words make us condemned or innocent, we learn that we can either protect ourselves or invite ruin with our words, that being careful of our words keeps our soul from distress, and that wise people have gracious words, but fools are consumed by their words.
These verses tell us what comes from evil words, and what comes from good words. We learn that words have the power to give life, we learn that our words make us condemned or innocent, we learn that we can either protect ourselves or invite ruin with our words, that being careful of our words keeps our soul from distress, and that wise people have gracious words, but fools are consumed by their words.
But if we start with changing our words, we’ve missed a few steps!
Your words tell me the condition of something else. If you focus on changing your words without changing the deeper issue, you will be an actor in a movie striving in your own power, you will be focused on performance, and people will easily see through your façade.
If you must strive to keep your words positive, then you have missed the other steps in the process, because “Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks” so whatever is inside is going to come out at some point!
You cannot put rotten eggs in a jar and get out pickles. Your heart is a fermenting jar! Fermenting only magnifies the benefit and flavor of what you put in. When you try to ferment rotten produce you will amplify the rotten, when you ferment good healthy veggies, even healthier food is produced!
It’s time to focus not on what is coming out (your words) but what is inside, and even more importantly, what you are getting filled with.
It is popular and trendy to focus on our words, our choices, and our actions. This culture is results oriented. But we forget that the health of those things is determined by what went in. Have you been listening to, and looking at things that cause a hard, trampled heart, thorns, thistles, and rot?
Head HERE to watch the devotional YouTube that addresses this issue. I'll be chatting about this topic there for a bit. So subscribe to my YouTube channel to hear more about how to deal with this issue without feeling fake.
Head HERE to watch the devotional YouTube that addresses this issue. I'll be chatting about this topic there for a bit. So subscribe to my YouTube channel to hear more about how to deal with this issue without feeling fake.
Have you ever said those words? Do you say them a lot?
Some other forms of this statement are:
“I don’t feel like it”
“I’m not up to it!”
“Ugh, not again!”
“Why do I have to keep doing this?”
“I’m so over this!”
“I’m too tired!”
Some other forms of this statement are:
“I don’t feel like it”
“I’m not up to it!”
“Ugh, not again!”
“Why do I have to keep doing this?”
“I’m so over this!”
“I’m too tired!”
This morning in my quiet time, I was asking God why I didn’t have the motivation to do certain things for my business that I knew I needed to do.
I know that those things are really helping others, so that should be motivation enough right? Well, I kept telling myself I needed to do them, but then “I don’t want to!” would somehow sneak out!
It sounds like a petulant child! But it had become such a common thing to say that I didn’t even notice when I was saying it!
So as Abba showed me what was really happening when I would say those 4 small words, I started getting convicted of the side effects showing up in my life.
I had been wondering why I never wanted to go to fun events, it was much easier to just stay home and relax.
I would stay silent in group discussions, it was much easier to stay quiet and not be noticed.
I would hope that people would reach out to me, but I wouldn’t reach out to them, because it was just easier to wait until they needed me.
I didn’t ever want to exercise, or take walks, it was just easier to sit on the couch.
So the emotions that came with all of that were loneliness, feeling invisible or unimportant, isolation, left behind, missing out, and rejection.
I know that those things are really helping others, so that should be motivation enough right? Well, I kept telling myself I needed to do them, but then “I don’t want to!” would somehow sneak out!
It sounds like a petulant child! But it had become such a common thing to say that I didn’t even notice when I was saying it!
So as Abba showed me what was really happening when I would say those 4 small words, I started getting convicted of the side effects showing up in my life.
I had been wondering why I never wanted to go to fun events, it was much easier to just stay home and relax.
I would stay silent in group discussions, it was much easier to stay quiet and not be noticed.
I would hope that people would reach out to me, but I wouldn’t reach out to them, because it was just easier to wait until they needed me.
I didn’t ever want to exercise, or take walks, it was just easier to sit on the couch.
So the emotions that came with all of that were loneliness, feeling invisible or unimportant, isolation, left behind, missing out, and rejection.
Our words are so much more important than we realize! Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Our tongues are creative forces that build up or tear down! Since I was continuously negating any desire to do anything by saying, “I don’t want to!” I had put extreme limits on my purpose and destiny. Because the person I was created to be was getting shot down with words of passivity, laziness, and heaviness, I then was not motivated to do what I was called to do!
So my words for today are, “I excitedly pursue everything Abba has for me today and I find JOY in His plans for me, because He pursued me first!”
So my words for today are, “I excitedly pursue everything Abba has for me today and I find JOY in His plans for me, because He pursued me first!”
