For those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit.
—1 Peter 3:10
There's no real reason to wake up with a nasty attitude. Often, we wake up on a bright new morning feeling angry or with a chip on our shoulder. Perhaps we were turned down for a loan on a house we wanted, or we didn't get the job we interviewed for, or we don't seem able to obtain the things we feel we deserve.
We go out the door and greet the world with that anger and agitation just waiting to be unleashed. Then we find ourselves saying things we later regret simply because we were focused on the feeling that life is unfair.
Evil speech is really an attempt to broadcast to others how miserable we feel inside, and in some way, make them as miserable as we are. If others join us in our misery, we won't feel so alone. Yet, what we may not realize is that the opposite is true as well. When we speak uplifting and encouraging words to others, we broadcast how hopeful we feel, and others take on our hopefulness with us.
Waking to a new day is a gift—feeling the life that God has given us, knowing the possibilities that are before us, even if we do not have all that we want. The truth is, we always have the opportunity to make new choices.
If a sense of unfairness weighs on us so heavily that we find ourselves sharing misery rather than hopefulness, we can lighten our load by becoming still within and asking God to give us the wisdom to discern other options waiting to be discovered. We may find that if we speak some words of blessing, we will see blessing when it comes to us.
Gracious God, let hopefulness and possibility lead me to the blessings you have for me.
Copyright ©2009 Cleophes Carter, Jr.