Physical actions taken against a person can wreak great havoc in their life, but saying hurtful and destructive words can make them feel they are worthless and will never be able to become a constructive person who is able to accomplish good things.
I grew up having heard the following saying many times: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." This is far from the truth! Words might not hurt you physically, but they can have a huge effect on you from a mental standpoint.
It is amazing how one person can say bad words to another long enough that the second person will start to believe them as truth. Most of the time it is the person who says the bad words that has the problem - not the one they are speaking to. They try to make themselves look good and ease their own conscience by telling the other person they have caused the problem, when the reality is that the first person just wants to blame anyone who happens to be there. He will do anything to keep from having to face up to his own fault.
Justification can be an awful thing in the mind of a person who will not admit they have a problem in the area of putting others down or berating them. You can justify just about anything if you try hard enough by making yourself believe that everyone else is the problem - not you.
It seems as if Satan is able to put extra power behind bad words in order to make them like poisonous arrows that have the potential to destroy whatever target they land on. He knows that once he can get you to believe these words, he has a huge chance of keeping you in bondage for the rest of your life.
Once you allow these bad words to permeate your mind, they will affect who you are unless you refuse to accept them. Sometimes even if you make the choice not to believe them, you must do it with much determination. This is especially true if you must come in close contact frequently with the person who says the bad words about you or to you.
You can never let another person "suck all the life out of you" to the point that your whole personality changes. If you are not careful, their manipulation and control will turn you into a person that lives in fear of what they might say or do, or what you might innocently do that will "tick them off." (That is my phrase for making them mad.)
The other person will never be able to have power over you if you find out who you are in Christ and walk in that truth. Once you do, you will know that you are special in his eyes and valued immensely. He wants you to succeed and be a mighty warrior for the Kingdom of God.
The only way to find out about the Character of God is to read the bible:
- Find a time each day that you can have a quiet time with God.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to the book where you need to start reading.
- Then ask Him to open your mind and ears to understand what God wants you to know. You will never understand what God is saying without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is a supernatural thing that comes from God, so how can you expect to have God's understanding when you are trying to approach reading the Bible from your own limited perspective.
- Understand that the Bible is truth, and the truth is always the truth no matter what you or anyone else may think.
- The Holy Spirit will never lead you astray.
- Understand that you might have to re-think some things that you have always thought of as being truth, when they never have been. We humans sometimes twist things around a bit to soothe our conscience, and sometimes those myths get passed on for hundreds of years.
- Don't accept anything but the truth, and be vigilant to find it and live in it.
You cannot always stop a person from speaking hurtful or degrading words, but YOU and only YOU can decide how you will handle them.
God can give you the strength and wisdom to know how to handle situations that arise, but you must ask Him for it and walk in obedience to what He tells you to do. You might not be able to get away from a person that speaks hurtful and damaging words, but you can let God give you the strength and wisdom to handle them without being destroyed by them.
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