Wise Words
Uncommon Sense: Wisdom from Proverbs
September 2, 2018
Have you ever hit the send button on an email or a text message only to realize that auto-correct has made a most regrettable change to your message? This is especially frustrating or embarrassing when you are sending a message to a customer or client. You have taken the time to craft a professional and well-worded message only to have it changed to something that makes no sense at all. Or worse yet, auto-correct changed one single word and now it makes perfect sense; but the message it communicates is embarrassing or even offensive! If you have done this, and most of us have, you recognize the importance of words…and spelling.
The significance of words is incredibly underrated in a culture saturated with written messages on nearly every inch of space in our lives. From advertisements seeking your attention, witty and entertaining blogs, warning labels on food, work emails, and, yes, the seemingly endless stream of text messages. The incredible volume of words flowing through our lives and minds on any given day can have a dulling effect on the significance we give to words. For example, you might be experiencing this exact thing right now as you read the words I have written here.
Words have profound power and influence in our lives that we often fail to recognize or use to their fullest. Words have the power to hurt or to heal, to save or to destroy relationships, to comfort or instill fear, to encourage or discourage. This list could go on and on. Words mean something, and their meaning carries with them messages that evoke emotion and inspire us as we receive them. This is the reason why Proverbs, and many other Bible passages, give so much time and energy to the use of words in our lives. For this reason, in our last message of this series on wisdom in Proverbs we are focusing on Wise Words. I hope you will join us this Sunday as we seek to rediscover the significant power of Wise Words.
- Kap Otten