HOLD THE SPICE

Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”

I LOVE spicy food! Seriously, it’s my favorite. Now, I do have a limit because I’ve come to learn that there is a certain spice level that’s just stupid. One time I had someone convince me to try ghost pepper wings. They had said that since I loved spicy food so much, I needed to see if I could tolerate that level. I took two bites, and the world went blurry. It was BAD! My entire face and digestive tract burned for the rest of the day. It was too spicy!

Just like food can be spicy, there is something that can be even spicier: our words. Words are the flavoring of our lives with many different flavors: sweet, sour, bland, or spicy. God shows us in Colossians 4:6 that our words are to be well seasoned so that the answer we provide to every man is palatable. This sounds great in theory, but it is so hard to apply. Why? Because it’s so easy to speak spicy words that we say them without thinking. James 3:5-6 proves this by saying, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” This means if we want palatable words, we must hold the spice. So what makes them spicy?

The most obvious spicy words are the ones said in anger and frustration. Dear believer, while we must deal with those emotions, that doesn’t mean we have to spread them. We often don’t mean half the things we say in those moments, yet those words tend to have the most lasting impact. If we aren’t careful, we will permanently damage relationships through temporary feelings. Discouraging words can be just as damaging because we often don’t even realize we are saying them. For instance, someone recently said something to me that really discouraged me. It was so bad that I no longer enjoyed what we were doing. The only reason it got to me in the first place was because of my life circumstances. They could’ve said the same thing to another person, and that person never would have been hurt by those words. I still greatly love the person, but I’ll admit that hearing those words changed a bit of how I saw them. That’s what makes discouraging words so spicy: they damage the view others have of the person who said them.

So how do we overcome this? First, by asking God for His help. God wants us to say good words, as He shows us many times through Scripture. Proverbs 16:24 is just one example of that. Once we ask God for His help, we must then give Him the opportunity to help us by stopping before we speak. Every word that comes out of our mouth must have thought behind it. When we do that, it allows the Holy Spirit the chance to stop us from saying the wrong things. The person who allows the Holy Spirit to form their thoughts is the person who will encourage people the most.

What flavor are your words? Are they so spicy that relationships are being damaged, or are they well seasoned and enjoyable? Your words have great power. So let’s hold the spice and be encouraging!

Recommended reading from Old Paths Publications: The Art of Communication