Reformation Report

Sarcasm

Have you ever seen children playing and one throws a sarcastic comment at another. Sometimes that child gives as good as they’ve just received, which usually starts a dispute, but often you’ll see a pained look in the eyes of the child receiving the sarcasm.

Perhaps you know a teenage child who has started feeling embarrassed about spending time with their parents because friends at school mock them. As adults we have grown accustomed to hearing sarcasm bantered around as if it was an acceptable way to communicate. Sarcasm is in all reality not humorous, but is expression of negative and undercutting declarations. Frequently if these are directed at us personally, we pretend that these cutting remarks do not affect us, whether they are said in the name of humor, or are intentionally undermining. But in reality ‘sarcasm is the lowest form of wit’. The truth is that, ‘although sticks and stones may break our bones, words can also harm us!’

Sarcasm is derived from the Greek word “sarkazo”, meaning “to tear flesh”. Sarcasm can be very harmful if we give sanction to it in our lives. It tears down a person’s self worth and self esteem, and belittles and stops our growth in the area it’s directed towards. If we accept negative remarks from anyone, be it friend or foe, as being true, they can stay with us for life. Sarcastic words can develop into injunctions that affect our core value system and can influence our belief about who we are and what we can and cannot do with our lives.

This is why it is important to be aware not only of who we allow to speak into our lives, but what they are saying and how they are saying it. Is it positive or negative? Does it foster growth or stunt growth? Is it life giving or does it bring about death? One way to check if a cutting remark has ‘hit home’, is whether we can hear the comment repeating itself in our minds. The truth is that we have the power to silence these remarks and eliminate the effect they have had on us. We do this by speaking positive truths about ourselves, as affirmations, based on the word of God.

As people have a tendency to resist change, we need to be aware of any negativity resident in us, and determine not to allow it to stay, but to embark on a journey of transforming ourselves and our minds to become who God ordained us to be.

Worry

Worry affects most people in one way or another, it knows no boundaries; it plagues both young and old, rich and poor, people of all races, cultures and language groups. I’ll highlight a few common sources of worry and look at how Jesus would have us deal with this terror called worry.

The Global economic crisis has left few untouched, shaking the bedrock of many people’s security in life, their financial reserves. Climate change, food shortages and the threat of unexpected terrorist attacks also produce an underlying  state of anxiety in many people worldwide.  Then for those in less stable countries, wars, natural disasters, famine and disease shake their entire worlds.

Worldwide the less fortunate worry about not having enough money and the privileged fret about the security of all that they own. Singles worry about getting married, married people wonder why they got married in the first place! The grass looks greener on the other side of the hedge, but it still needs mowing, and that takes time, costs resources and holds no glamour. We worry about how to get what we don’t have, and how to maintain what we do have.

It has been said, worry can’t change the past, but it will ruin the present and destroy your future. The only place it will get you to ahead of time, is the cemetery! I’ve also heard worry described as your personal irritation with God, because you cannot control everything, and do not have enough trust in Him to believe that He will do what his word says He will do.

Jesus recognized the hold worry had on people and asked, “Who of you by worry can add one cubit (18 inches) to your height, or an hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:27) While reminding his disciples of how futile worry is, he likened them to the sparrows who never worry but God gives them food! Worry is powerless to change anything about our lives, except our health status, and that for the negative!

Worry has actually been scientifically proven to be harmful! Worry increases our stress levels, which in turn produces high blood pressure, and adversely affects the status of our immune systems. We literally can cause our own ill health because of worry. Philippians chapter 4, verse 6 Paul tells us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love power and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). And in Proverbs we read the antidote to worry, which is laughter.  Laughter does GOOD like a medicine, whereas worry dries up the bones (Proverbs 17:22). We have to come to the point where we realise that, “I and I alone am responsible for the thoughts I think, for the emotional attitudes that rule my life and my reactions to the situations around me." Once we have accepted this truth, we can move forward, because we understand that changing our own lives is in our control. I also cannot allow anyone or anything to have power over me to make me worry. I am in the hand of God, I need to keep the picture straight.

 

Self Talk

Do you sometimes talk to yourself? I know we all speak to ourselves and more often than not it’s negative words, negative affirmations like “I am stupid, I am so dumb, I can’t do that ” What we tell ourselves about ourselves and our circumstances can be very influential. When we speak to ourselves in absolutes like the ones I have quoted we ratify it and affirm it as the truth and ultimately it becomes our reality.

 

In order to change our reality we need to replace our negative thoughts, and learn to hold our tongue instead of talking negatively about ourselves. Replacing negative words like “I can’t” with positive talk like “I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me”, could make the difference between success or failure. If you can’t, then you can’t, because you believe what you say, I can’t!”  In our ministry when things don’t go according to plan we don’t say we have failed, we say we just found out how not to do it. We have found that saying that helps us to not go over the same “lesson” and waste our time by doing the same thing over and over again.

 

Albert Einstein said, “Doing the same thing the same way expecting a different result is one of the first signs of insanity.”

The words we speak are powerful. Whatever we affirm, establish and chart a specific course, direction, outcome, or state of being for our future. The bible says, “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” and again “as a man thinks in his heart so is he”. I want to encourage all of us to think about what we are saying, especially about what we are saying about ourselves.