Can Words really Change the World?

Your words matter. Whether you write, speak, or simply want to connect with the hearts of those you love. My friend, Holley Gerth, and I have been talking and praying about words. How to serve with them. How to use them well. We’re writing our thoughts as a series of letters each Tuesday and we’d love for you to be part of the conversation too. Will you join us?

Dear Ann,

It’s early. My coffee is warm and I’m sitting at the kitchen table wishing you, and all of those reading these letters with us, were here.

I’m so glad we’re talking about words—how we they change us, how we can use them to change the world.

A few months ago I’d grown discouraged about words.

It seemed everyone I knew was doing something amazing.

Going to another continent to help needy.

Starting a new church.

Building an organization.

I’d just come back from a trip where it seemed words were just about business. The contrast had me questioning everything.

I settled on to my couch to pray. I asked God if I should stop, if words really mattered, if perhaps I should be doing something more weighty and important. And it seemed He took me to Isaiah 58…

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

“Yes,” I thought, “See, I need to be doing something else.” Just then I received two e-mails…

The first came from a woman who expressed on my blog that she wasn’t sure she wanted to live any longer. Through correspondence with her and encouragement from the online community, she’d taken steps to get help and had written to say thanks.

The second came from a woman running an orphanage in another country. She told me of how my words to help her keep doing what she was doing in that place.

And it seemed God whispered that in the Kingdom there isn’t much difference between a hungry belly and a hungry heart.

There are all kinds of needs.

And all kinds of ways to meet them.

Sometimes that means actual food and a trip to another country.

Other times it means daily bread of words offered from wherever we are.

Ann, I’ve come to believe this…

When we use words to encourage, bless, fill—we are feeding the poor in spirit.

When we give hope, present truth, cover with love—we are clothing the naked.

When we offer grace, tear down walls, replace lies with truth—we are setting the oppressed free.

You, Ann, reading these words—you do this every single day. When you went to Guatemala with Compassion. I loved reading your posts because I thought, “she’s doing in the physical world what she does in the spiritual one all the time.”

You, Reader, following along with us in these letters—you do this. In your way.

Wherever you are. With words you offer to your family, friends, the stranger you meet in the street, on your blog, in your e-mails, from the front of a class on Sunday.

I don’t know what this looks like for you but it makes me smile to imagine you doing just this — everyday.

And, I believe with all my heart, when we use our words this way it makes the heart of God smile too.