Mentoring #3—Self-Spoken Mentoring

By the fruit of your mouth your hunger will be satisfied; you will be filled with the product of your lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love that power will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:20–21

We can confidently hope to “speak what is good for building up” others if we speak life into our own hungry souls first. Since the words that flow from our lips begin not in the mind, but in the heart, we must first satisfy the hunger of our hearts. But we must be very careful what we feed them. For if we privately swallow poisonous messages, we will kill the root of any good word we hope to express publicly. Therefore, we must love the power we have to plant beneficial word-seeds in our own hearts; we must cherish self-talk, such as: “I am hopeful because of God’s kindnesses to me when I was not upright. As I trust my future to the Lord who loved me and gave himself for me, people see love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. God makes all grace abound to me, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, I have an abundance for every good deed. God has not given me a cowardly spirit but one of power, love and sensible judgment. Out of the joyful gratitude for my daily experience of the goodness of God, I overflow with words that edify all I meet.”

Bountiful God, thank you for your proven words of promise. May the words of faith you’ve planted produce an abundant and life-giving harvest.