The Treasure of Your Heart & Power of Your Tongue (September 2010)


The subject matter of this article isn’t really a triumph of Jesus’ power and joy in my life, but rather a scathing indictment to what I am NOT doing right. Many of you know me as “mo”, but I must tell you the name I often call myself is “Complainy Mcplainerson”. This realization that I in fact complain…A LOT, came to me on the way to my nephews first birthday party. A happy time by all accounts, however, I wasn’t happy with certain aspects of the party planning, which I won’t bore you with details. I am riding in my car with my mom and I started complaining about the poor planning of the party etc, when my mother looked over at me and asked “do you have a can opener”. I looked at her and sheepishly replied, “do you mean on me”; (again picture the scene; me – driving - in a car – nowhere near a kitchen). She kind of smiled and said “yes”. After I asked her why she asked me that, she pulled out a can of baked beans from a grocery bag. Now, the reason this story is shamefully humorous is that we were on our way to celebrate a one year olds birthday in a park and to my knowledge there isn’t a kitchen there much less public can openers available. At that moment I snapped back at my mother as to why she would bring an unopened can of beans to the park. She too, was bothered by the planning festivities of her only grandchild’s birthday party. It was her subtle (I use this term loosely) way of making a statement that she was in fact not happy. In that moment I thought to myself, what kind of freak show family did I get stuck with? Haven’t we all wondered that from time to time, why we ended up with the families we have, ahh, but I digress. My mother then went on to complain about her displeasure about the circumstances as she was talking her voice became fainter and my internal monologue became louder. I stepped out of myself as an objective onlooker to my family and my conversations and realized that I came from a long line of complainers. I didn’t realize that complaining could in fact be a generational curse. Over the past few weeks, I really made a point to listen to myself in conversations and noticed how over & over again, I would complain about anything and everything; big situations, small situations it didn’t matter, I complained about it all.

I now ask myself how can a born-again, Spirit-filled believer complain so much about things that in fact do not really matter in the grand scheme of life? I should have all the fullness of life in my speech. Now that is not to say I should walk around as a robot quoting scriptures, because in fact I am human, and I am most definitely not perfect. But, there is a line between being real & letting the negative reservoir of my heart come spilling out on everyone.

The following scripture came to my memory:

Luke 6:45 states plainly “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”

Looking up the definitions of words always excites me and in this sentence “abundance” in the Greek means; “abundance, in which one delights”. Following that up was “mouth” in the Greek meaning “the thoughts of a man’s soul find verbal utterance by his mouth, the heart or soul and mouth are distinguished”; but most interestingly it also means “the edge of a sword”. So, my paraphrase of this scripture is “for with what you delight in your heart you speak out loud using the edge of a sword”. So my mouth is like an edge of a sword and with I could cause injury to those to whom I am speaking. I have been around many people who complain and as I walk away, I feel as though I have been cut down and depressed, it never occurred to me that after I have vomited my complaints out to others, they walk away feeling the same way. I have actually cut them down instead of speaking life, even if it is my life I’m talking about at the time.

In Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” It only takes a few brief moments in conversation with someone to know what is close to their heart. So our heart acts as a treasure chest and we put all those wonderfully dear things that we love in it. In Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” this clearly lets me know that what I consider my treasure will also be what I hold dear to my heart. This brings me back to the scripture in Luke 6:45, I either have good treasure or bad treasure in my heart and I’ll either speak good or bad depending on the type of treasure.

So with this knowledge, I am evaluating what I am putting in my treasure box inside my heart. Am I letting my unhappy circumstances override the many blessings that God has give me. Why am I so discontented that at the slightest hiccup in my plans that I react negatively and I dare say with great drama. My foundation and faith in Jesus Christ should be my rock to which I hold to no matter what tidal wave tries to knock me down. I believe it is a matter of will to speak life instead of complaining. In Hebrews (4:12) the Word of God is referred to as a sword “For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Did you notice that last part; “discerner of the thoughts & intents of the heart”. My mouth was made to speak the Word of God, to speak life instead of death; “the power of life and death are in the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). When I speak the sword (symbolically my mouth) should slay the devil and His powers within the situations, instead of slaying the person to whom I am talking. Our words have power. God himself creative power came through speaking. So our words have creative power because we are in fact made in His image.

The first thing I have learned about myself is to understand the need to cast out those unpleasant situations, hurts, & disappointments that crept into the treasure box of my heart and turn them over to Jesus. After taking those issues from my now empty heart I want to be filled up with God’s love, peace, the Word, & Holy Spirit, so that the treasure of my heart is good and that I will speak good life-changing devil slaying things. This journey to changing my attitude and speaking patterns will not happen over night, but I am determined to give myself over to the process and let God do His marvelous work. Lastly, we didn’t eat baked beans at the party.

~ Melissa Graw