Over the past month or so, I have been developing a strong distaste for sarcasm. I hate to even admit this because I’m sure there will come a moment when something sarcastic pops out of my mouth and someone says, “Didn’t you write a blog about sarcasm?”
“Yep, that would be me, perfectly imperfect right here.”
Despite my concern for potential scrutiny, I still feel the need to explore the words we are releasing from our mouths. While I specified that sarcasm has been bothering me, I have to recognize that sarcasm is not the root of my frustration. The root of my frustration is our flippant use of words. I’m a writer, so I recognize that words may seem a bit more important to me than others, but let me elaborate on why words should matter to everyone.
In the book of Genesis, God spoke and things came into existence. Rather than speak mankind into existence, He bent down and breathed life into us. We have inside of us the same breath that spoke and caused things to exist. Why are we okay with speaking death over ourselves through sarcastic remarks?
“Well, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Listen, I am not judging; I have been guilty of this myself and may need a loving reminder to watch my tongue in the future. But that doesn’t lessen the power of this message.
“Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.” Matthew 12:36-37 MSG
There are enough bullies in the world; we don’t need to bully ourselves. We’ll face more than enough negativity; we don’t need to be the ones adding to it. The words we speak are powerful; they have the capability of uplifting or destroying others and...ourselves. All too often, we focus on how important it is to be nice to others. We need to start by being nice to ourselves.
Part of developing a good character in a book is for the character to face challenges, grow, and mature. This same development is good for our own life stories. We aren’t required to grow and mature. We aren’t required to learn how to be kind to ourselves and stop speaking negative things over ourselves or others. But when we learn how to tame our tongues, when we learn the power we have within our mouth, our lives can change for the better. Look at the story of Peter Parker (Spiderman). Uncle Ben’s famous line is, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
When individuals receive superpowers in stories, they have the potential to use them to increase good and become heroes, or use them for chaos and destruction and become villains. Your words hold supernatural powers; will you choose to be the hero or the villain of your story?