Christian Thought Life: How Your Thoughts Shape Your Words

For the past month or so, God has been speaking to me about the power of words, both spoken and unspoken, to affect my own life and those I come in contact with.

Actually, God has been specifically dealing with me in the area of my thought life—the negative thoughts I think about myself, the mental records I play over and over again. Negative thoughts about my looks, my clothes, my cooking, my writing, my conversations, my spiritual life, the way others see me… and on and on.

Can you relate?

It often makes it difficult for me to accept compliments, to accept love, to accept genuine offers of friendship, or even to believe I have something of value to offer others.

Sometimes those records are negative thoughts about others that I allow to play in my mind, and they color all interactions with that person. These thoughts, when unchecked, can put a positive or negative spin on every single interaction.

God’s Word on How Thoughts Shape the Tongue

This morning, God spoke to me again through James 3:2–12. I want to share it in my own words.

It is easy to stumble and fall, to sin with words. A person who does not do damage to anything or anyone with their words is a very mature Christian indeed, able to control not only their tongue but their whole body.

The tongue is a very small organ, but it steers the entire life. Just as a bridle controls where the horse goes and the rudder controls the course of a ship, in the same way, the life of a person is shaped, guided, and directed by the words the tongue speaks.

Just as a tiny fire, a little spark, can set a whole forest ablaze and destroy thousands of acres, so the tongue can cause a whole world of misery, injustice, and sin.

The tongue bears such influence over the entire person that it is often the reason someone falls into destruction. Man has tamed every kind of animal, but no one can fully tame the tongue. It is unruly and full of deadly poison—for the life of the possessor and for those it is used against.

With the tongue, we pray to God and give thanks; then we turn around and gossip about others, put down or belittle ourselves, our spouse, our children, men and women—all of whom are made in the image of God. Out of the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. This should not be, dear friends.

Does a spring of water give both fresh water and salt water at the same time? Of course not. Can a fig tree bear olives? No. Can a grapevine grow figs? Absolutely not.

Then we should be sure that our mouth is not the source of both good and evil—prayers and thanksgiving in church or our devotional time, but grumbling, complaining, gossiping, or belittling during the rest of the week. (JSV = Janet Salazar Version)

Here is the crux of the matter: Our thoughts give rise to the words we speak. Thus, the battle to control our tongue begins with our thoughts.

A Personal Example: When Negative Thoughts Spill Into Words

My husband and I are staying in a resort for meetings he has to attend. To reach our 7,000 steps, we decided to explore the hotel. To our surprise, we discovered an arcade game room.

Among the games available was a foosball table. My husband is very good at foosball, having played it from childhood. I am horrible at it. I’ve only played it about three or four times in my life. And my eye-hand coordination isn’t great when speed is critical.

Of course, my husband wanted to play. And I—without telling him about my feelings of inferiority and fear of failure—agreed to play.

Let’s just say, it took very little time for Rudy to start racking up points against me… and enjoying it—which hurt my pride. So, I began to indulge some negative thoughts.

“Look at him gloating over winning. The only reason he wants to play is because he knows he can easily win and just wants to gloat. It’s not even Christian of him to celebrate over each point when I am so horrible at this game.”

This thinking quickly turned into words I sarcastically threw at my husband.

“Wow, it’s really something to celebrate winning against your wife when you’ve played this all your life and your wife has played it like twice, isn’t it?”

Oh, how quickly those negative thoughts gave birth to cutting, sinful words!

Meanwhile, my mental tirade against myself continued:

“I AM horrible at this game. I have no coordination. I should just give up. Why try? I don’t have a chance of scoring against him, so what’s the point?”

And here’s where my thoughts got really ugly.

“Well, I have to try a little so he can gloat. It makes him feel good when he wins against me, no matter how unfair it is.”

Do you see what happened? My negative thoughts destroyed his joy and mine. They were not Christlike in any way.

The Turning Point: Choosing Better Thoughts and Speaking Life

Thankfully, God began to work on me and show me that what I was doing was wrong—that I needed to change the way I was thinking about Rudy and about myself.

About 20 minutes later, we discovered a pool table and decided to play. Those negative thoughts still lingered around the edges, eager to ruin the joy again. But this time, by God’s grace, I chose to think differently.

I decided I was going to speak positive words. I would compliment Rudy when he made a good play, celebrate when he got a ball in the pocket, and even feel the disappointment with him when he missed.

That small choice spilled over into more positive thoughts about my own plays too.

And you know what? We both enjoyed the game. It was fun. We became less concerned about who beat who and more focused on simply enjoying being together.

We even decided to play a second game!

Words Are Born From Thoughts

Proverbs 18:21 reminds us: “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” (JSV)

And the genesis of our spoken words is our thought life. As Jesus said: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34–35, NKJV)

No wonder Paul tells us in Philippians 4:8:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (NIV)

This is why the battle for the tongue begins with the battle for the mind. Negative thoughts give birth to negative words, while godly thoughts produce words of life. If we want to speak blessings, encouragement, and truth, we must first guard what we allow ourselves to think.