"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." ~Ephesians 4:29
Back in high school I realized something.
I realized one day that much of what everyone said was a competition in trying to make yourself feel better while putting someone else down. Everyone would be talking - could be about anything - and teasing each other and stuff and I found so often that someone would put down another person, probably with something small, but the only intent of putting the other person down to make other people laugh at themselves or think they are better, or to just feel cool about themselves. The only reason for doing this was building yourself up - at the expense of someone else. Why make someone else feel stupid just so you can get a laugh from others around at how much cooler you are than the other person? Well... in the end, this only makes the first person look self centered.
I decided back in high school that I did not want to tear others down in order to make myself feel better. Of course sometimes that tendency slips back out again, however I don't want to be self focused in my speech. After seeing friends doing it to other friends, or to myself, I have both seen and felt the effects of blowing someone off and I don't want to be the person causing another person any pain. I want to be a person who is others focused, and building others up in my speech. God calls us to not let any unwholesome talk out of our mouths, but rather only what is building up to others. Our speech should be beneficial to those listening, not words that tear them down and hurt them. This can be done in the littlest things, so small we may not even realize it. All it does however is hurt other people, and make ourselves feel cool (for like, a second) and usually pretty shallow as well.
Anyway... that was my thought over the past few days.
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