When a father speaks, his children are profoundly impacted by his words. We need to be extremely careful what we say and how we speak to our children.
Our words can have a powerful impact on a child in the positive. They can have a tremendous negative impact as well.
I travel each week speaking in churches, teaching seminars and conducting FivestarMan Encounters. I can’t estimate how many times I have prayed for grown men and women who are still controlled by the loose words that a person of authority spoke over them when they were a child.
Not long ago, while ministering in a church, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to pray for a couple. I asked them to come forward and asked permission to pray for them. They agreed.
As I laid my hands upon their foreheads while praying, my mind began to see scenes of the woman’s childhood. She was thirteen years old, she was joyfully dancing around in her bedroom, laughing and playing, when her father came by the room and began to speak harsh and angry words over her. He bruised her spirit. It was that moment — that very instance — that caused her to withdraw into a cocoon spiritually and emotionally.
She began to accept that a father was mean, controlling, harsh and angry.
When I described the scene that played out in my mind, the woman uncontrollably burst into tears. Sobbing and wrenching before me, she allowed the pent-up emotion of decades to come forth.
I then turned to her husband, and spoke a word over him. “Without knowing that this occurred in her young life, you have also used harsh words and outbursts of rage to control your wife.” He confessed to me that he didn’t know why he had done this and that it was out of his normal character to do so, but he admitted that he did speak to his wife this way to get what he wanted.
That couple was delivered from that horrific pattern in their marriage that day. The husband pledged to never again use harsh, angry words to control his wife. She released her father in forgiveness, and she committed not to allow that moment from so many years ago to control her life from that day on.
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs …” (Eph. 4:29).
Effective Communication
Don’t use inappropriate language. Unwholesome talk means words that are demeaning, harsh, hurtful or sarcastic. Words have the ability to root within a person—to putrify within a person’s soul.
Speak kind and comforting words. Carefully select your words. Words should be personally helpful for the listener.
Speak words that build up. Words have the ability to be constructive or destructive to a person.
So, if you have spoken unwholesome words, repent for speaking them, revoke the effect of them and replace them with positive affirmations that replace their ill effect.
“I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (John 12:50).
For the original article, visit fivestarman.com. Fivestarman was founded in 2008 by Neil Kennedy. He has passionately promoted God’s Word for 25-plus years of ministry. He is known for practically applying biblical principles that elevate people to a new level of living. As a business, church, ministry and life consultant, Neil has helped others strategize the necessary steps to reach their full potential.
