The Power of Words

“You’re on the road to Damascus.” “I see you beating on a tree. You’re beating on it so hard that bark is falling off all around you.”
Words have power. This is especially true when we say something to someone about themselves. Many/most people are fragile, often in the area of identity. Who am I? Why am I here? Am I important? Do I matter? This may be a modern western phenomenon, or it may not. That’s another discussion.
I had a guy come up to me last week and say the words mentioned above in quotations, along with more detail I will not share. He believed these words came from God. The latter he called a ‘vision.’ How am I to take such a message? How much weight should I give it?
Our society tells us that how we think of ourselves influences how we act. There is truth to this statement, though how far it extends may be debated. If I believe I’m a no-good scumbag, I’ll likely act like one in the way I speak, my personal hygiene, my sense of responsibility. If I believe I’m unlikable, that no one wants to be friends with me, I’ll probably respond to people out of that belief both in the way I act and in the way I understand their words. If I think myself highly amusing, I’ll likely be constantly trying to convince others that this is true of me.
If we combine these two ideas - that words have immense power and that our sense of self influences our behavior (dare I say, our very personhood?) - we should recognize the immense influence we have over people.
A personal anecdote. My mom has insisted that I write well. In the past I tended to disagree or shrug off the compliment. Being the persistent type, she has often made such statements over the years, and I’ve gradually begun to believe it. You, reader, can feel free to disagree. My point is that because she’s kept saying it again and again I’ve gradually accepted that it is true.
I tend to be blunt sometimes. But I’ve recognized that a straightforward statement of the truth is often unhelpful. What I say about a person to their face may be true. It’s likely they’ll internalize it, believing it to be true. Even if they don’t strictly ‘believe’ what you said, it’ll probably still influence them. If what you’ve said is negative, this is bad news. Negativity has a way of sticking around and building on itself. It’s an erosive process. I think we’re in the business of building godly men and women, not tearing them down. I think.
If how I started this and how I ended it seem to be focused on slightly different matters, it’s only because I started it yesterday and forgot exactly where I was going. Sounds a lot like life…