Words are really powerful, they have the ability to build up and to tear down so quickly sometimes its hard to stop and over the last year or so I have been reminded of just how powerful and devastating they can be, while I was working at another site, there was a lady in reception that had the following quote above her computer:

Watch your thoughts, they become your words.
Watch your words, they become your actions.
Watch your actions, they become your habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

It’s a pretty good reminder, something that I don’t think about anywhere near enough. It all starts with a little thought and if you’re not careful it can get out of control. Words don’t just happen, they come from thoughts, despite how bad you think the filter is… In fact if the filter is bad, words are probably an even better representation of your thoughts because they aren’t filtered… they just come out the way they were found in the brain, which for someone with a bad filter like me is a scary thought in itself.

This is something that I have been really challenged about recently, the impact of my thoughts on my life. My outlook, my reaction to things and the way that I deal with people. Often I am quite negative and sceptical on the inside, but on the outside I am peachy pie, until you ask the right questions. But even though I can push it to the back it still taints everything I do, it sets me up to have a bad attitude right from the beginning. It sets me up to be disappointed because that’s what I am expecting. The book that I am reading at the moment, ‘Soul Detox’ by Craig Groeschel, talks a lot about getting your mind right, stopping negative, bitter, jealous thoughts dead in their tracks and replacing them with things that are of God, which is straight from the bible…

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Philippians 4:8 (NLT)

I think I need to start making a conscious effort to control my thoughts, to protect my mind and to stop things that aren’t true, noble, right, pure, lovely or admirable from dwelling, before they become my words or my actions. Stopping them one thought at a time, before I let them turn into words that hurt others the way that the words of others have hurt me.