Let God Speak

Let God Speak

The voices of this world are loud — and the loudest is usually our own.

So often, we tell others to speak kindly to themselves. We encourage them, and we want them to encourage others. Yet minutes later, we can do something and speak to ourselves in a way we would never suggest to someone else — or even speak to someone else that way.

I am guilty of this exact thing.

I tell my kids to speak with kindness and not to talk down to themselves… but what I say and what I do don’t always match. So, what they see and hear is me telling them one thing, while speaking to myself in a way I just told them not to. I’m being a hypocrite to myself.

What am I teaching them? I’m teaching them to be kind to everyone else, but not to themselves. I’m no longer living out what it looks like to speak as God would speak. Instead, I’m speaking from a human standpoint, not a biblical one.

James 3:9-12 say, - “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”

This is exactly what happens and we can expect to produce goodness when we can’t even follow through with our own advice.

We can be two-faced — not always in the way we think of it, but it still matters.

Out of our mouths comes praise to the Lord, and then words of condemnation and judgment — not just toward others, but toward ourselves. At what point are we letting God speak and truly listening?

We must learn God’s voice so that we can hear it above all other voices.

Think about it — when something happens and you start talking to yourself, whose voice do you hear? Is it your own, or someone else’s?

For me, it can be my own voice or even the voice of others. But I’m really trying to hear God’s truth more and allow His voice to rise above the rest.

When we learn to hear God’s voice over all others, we begin to understand what is actually true. When we read the Bible and apply God’s teaching to our lives, we begin to recognize that His voice should be louder than anyone else’s.

I remember seeing a video of an experiment once. Someone planted two plants. To one, they spoke words of encouragement and kindness. To the other, they spoke words of negativity and judgment.

The plant that received kindness blossomed and bloomed. The other one withered.

If something God created responds that way to words, wouldn’t we respond in ways that either build us up or tear us down?

Absolutely.

James 3:8 says, “No human can fully tame the tongue.” This is because we often speak without thinking. Sometimes, the things we say are things we didn’t even realize we believed until we heard them come out — whether from ourselves or someone else.

If it comes out of our mouths, it reflects something in our hearts, even if we didn’t recognize it before.

Isn’t that interesting? Thoughts can bounce around in our minds without much weight, but once we speak them, they can take root and feel real.

There have been many things I never thought about myself until I heard someone else say them. Words carry weight. Whether they are true or not, someone believed them enough to say them. It then becomes our responsibility to discern what is actually true.

And the way we do that is by holding everything up to what God says about us.

Classic examples:

• “You’re unlovable” — God says you are loved.

• “You aren’t worthy” — God says you are His child.

  
  

We’ve heard these truths before, but sometimes we hear them so often that they start to feel like just words.

And yet, negative words — even repeated ones — can still hit us deeply every single time, as if they are brand new.

That’s something worth paying attention to.

So, the question remains: at what point are we letting God speak?

Are we truly letting Him speak to us? Are we really hearing what He is saying? Are we allowing His Word and His truth to settle into our hearts and shape how we think?

We have to learn to let God speak over us, to carry His truth with us, and to let it renew us every single day.