Lying Lips

Today I asked God again what it was that He wanted me to write about, and I heard the following, 'Proverbs 10:18' so that's where I went... and this is what it says. 

"Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips, and spreads slander is a fool." (Proverbs 10:18)

Firstly, I have to say I find proverbs very interesting, it's made up of a lot of little bits of wisdom, and if we follow them we will find ourselves living wise Godly lives. 

So what is Proverbs 10:18 saying to me?

Well, to me, it is a reminder to watch my tongue, and to remember and keep in mind that hatred cannot be covered with a simple smile or nice words. 

Hatred is a horrible thing, and it certainly does not belong in God's Kingdom. Hatred comes from jealousy or unforgiveness, things which are not from God, which to me just instills the fact that hatred also is not from God. I can feel pretty certain when I say that every one of us have probably had moments of feeling hatred towards someone. Someone may have hurt us, someone may not have done something the way we wanted, or someone may seem to have the life that we want. These can often lead us to a feeling of hatred toward them. The trick is to not let it get to you, and to not let that hatred take a part of your heart. 

It can be difficult, I know I have dealt with feelings of intense hatred toward an old friend. I would get angry at her, which then made me get angry at myself, which then turned to fear and depression, and then it all became an emotional blur. I didn't know what to feel when, and I was messed up. I now know that it's better to deal with the hatred straight away than to let it sit and stir at us. 

Many of us, as the proverb says, will try to hide hatred with "lying lips". I guess these lying lips can be a couple of things. The first is the obvious... saying things that we don't actually mean. The second, smiling and pretending things are great when they are not. It does not involve a necessary voiced lie, but it is an emotional lie. Trying to cover hatred with these lies and deceptions is foolish, it doesn't get you anywhere! Trust me... I've tried. I once had a friend who decided they wanted nothing to do with me anymore, and it took me months, maybe even years to get over it, I held on to this bitter hatred towards them that took up my life. When I was out, I pretended everything was fine, but on my own, it was a completely different story. I was foolish to think that if I lied about how I was feeling for long enough the feelings would go away. They never do! Not until you deal with it, and get rid of the hatred. 

So how do we deal with hatred if we feel it showing it's ugly head. Well, for me it took a lot of forgiveness. Forgiveness towards my friend who had wronged me. Due to some silly things I had said during this time, I lost a number of other friends who I then had to forgive also. Then it was myself I had to forgive, which was probably most difficult. Forgiving others for me comes easy, but forgiving myself is always  more difficult. But there was more than just forgiveness I had to do. I had to make a choice every day to love them, no matter what had happened, no matter what I felt. Love is a choice we all need to make everyday. Whether someone has treated us unkindly or badly, God still tells us to love them. He loved us, even when we didn't love Him in return, He is not asking us to do anything that He has not already done for us. Soon enough, I found that the hatred was gone, and the feelings that I had taken with me were gone. There was one other step involved, and that is through prayer, which is the answer to many things. If we don't know what to do, prayer will give us the answer. 

So I guess if you feel like you are holding onto hatred, stop being a fool. Let it go, don't lie to hide it, just get rid of it. Forgive and love! This is what God does for us, and what He wants us to do for others!

Thankful for: Dreams

Dreams are a big part of life. I don't mean the dreams we have at night while we're sleeping. I mean the big dreams, the goals, the things we want to do with our lives. Honestly, without them, we would struggle to live our lives, we wouldn't have any idea why and we probably wouldn't put effort into anything. When we have something to live for, something we want to achieve we make sure we put in the effort. "Where there  is no vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18)