If You Can't Say Anything Nice

Did your parents ever teach you the adage: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."?

One of my goals when I started this blog was to not post anything negative or complaining, which leads me to apologizing for the past week of posts. There's just so much life-draining negativity in this world, the last thing I want to do is add to that and make it worse.

Ephesians 4:29 instructs us to "...not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Whining and complaining certainly does not fit into this description. Not only that, it really doesn't make anything any better. Do we not listen to our own words? They're in our heads before we spew them forth into the world--we hear them first, and during, and often regretfully for long after they've been spoken. Or at least I do--maybe that's an OCD thing, obsessing over those details...Nonetheless, shouldn't we be more kind even to ourselves, by carefully regarding what words we speak?

Believe me, I know it's hard to be patient. Anger quickly bubbles to a boil. But if we can more diligently apply Phillipians 4:8, "...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." to our daily thought processes, just maybe we can better keep that anger on a low simmer, remember to breathe, refocus on 'things above', and spare others and ourselves from our otherwise hurtful words. And wouldn't that make the world just a little nicer to live in?