The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way. Does a spring send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?”

—James 3:9–11

It’s easy to say nice words about God while speaking harshly and negatively about and to others. This is what happens when we speak from the bitter springs of our own humanness instead of drawing from the fresh, overflowing rivers of living water (John 7:38).

Most of us, if we take the time to reflect on our words, know whether we’re speaking blessing or cursing. Many times, we’re speaking cursing and negativity because we’re not being thoughtful about what fills our hearts (Luke 6:45).

When our words are fueled by a heart full of anger, offense, fear, complaint, pride, and bitterness rather than a Christlike love, they’ve become cursing, and we need to back up and stay silent until we can speak with respect and humility.

We need to learn how to be honest about bad situations without turning it into “cursing.” It’s easy to fall into using harmful words when we’re not speaking in love and carefully considering our tone and intent.

We can discuss negative issues in helpful ways, or we can discuss them in ways that are dismissive and demeaning—with words that tear down or words that lift up.

If we’re filling our springs with living water, then blessing rather than cursing will flow from our words even when those words are filled with difficult truths.

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