It’s a normal morning like any other morning, but today you find yourself lying awake in your bed even before your alarm has sounded. As you lie there, nice and cozy under your covers, you feel yourself becoming more and more anxious over the thought of getting up and going to school today. If today is anything like yesterday or the day before that, or even the day before that, you can barely even stomach the thought of returning to school for an entire year!
School seems like the most challenging place in your life right now. It’s not the homework or the grades or even your teachers. It’s the other students. It’s what happens in the hallways between classes and what goes on before and after school on most days.
Students label each other. It’s been going on forever. Students put each other in certain categories without even knowing each other very well. Students are made fun of for what they wear, how they look, how they talk, how fat they are, how skinny they are. They’re labeled because they have glasses, because they have money, because they’re athletic, or because they aren’t athletic. They’re judged and made fun of because of the color of their skin, their nationality, their religion. They’re pushed around and made into the butt of one joke after another. (Oh well, it’s only a joke, right? When has a joke hurt anybody, anyway?)
As you lie there in the stillness of the morning before your alarm sounds, you catch yourself thinking about this school that you’re a part of. Is it everything you want it to be? Are you proud of yourself? Your classmates?
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It’s amazing how powerful words can be. The things we say to and about other people carry a lot of weight. We can use our words to hurt people, and we can use our words to help people. How important is it for us to think about our words before we speak them?
Take a few minutes to “chew on” the following Scripture verses, allowing God’s Spirit to speak to you.
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.
“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.”
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.