Change what you’re hearing!

Whoever coined the phrase, “Sticks and stones my break my bones, but words will never hurt me” must have been deaf.  Words can have a tremendous impact on us, and last night’s episode of Good Times reinforced this for me.  Robert, one of J.J.’s friends, got cut from his college’s basketball team and flunked out of school.  Despite J.J.’s encouragement, Robert kept replaying those words in his mind.  He became so discouraged that he tried to kill himself.  Long after the experience ends, painful words remain etched in our memory.

How do you rebound when the words you’ve heard are the source of the hard knocks you’ve experienced?  The woman with the issue of blood shows us clearly in the verses included above.  Prior to these verses, she had been a victim of painful words: in her mind, she kept hearing, “You’ll never be healed.”  But when she tuned to a different station, her life changed drastically.  When she heard the good news about Jesus, she found the strength to turn her life around.

It may seem too simple to believe, but it’s true – if you change what you’re hearing, you can change your life.  When life delivers a hard blow, dig deeper into the Word.  Remember, “.. faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ” (Romans 10:17, New Living Translation).