Words
Part 2
Twenty one days ago we asked you to try something. Pick a single truth, a scripture or something God says about you, and declare it out loud, daily, for three weeks. We were also hoping you might report back to us if anything changed or happened.
If nothing happened, well, it’s quite alright. These declarations do not work at the drop of a hat. They slowly alter your brain, and it may take much longer than a few weeks to notice a difference. But even if you noticed a little bit of a difference, that is meaningful. And if you didn’t do it at all, don’t worry. This is just an exercise, and you will get more out of focusing your love and attention on God than you will out of any exercise.
There is another piece to the declarations that you may find interesting.
Internal declarations are not quite as powerful as external declarations. When you hear your own voice, your auditory cortex activates. Your brain receives the words as external input rather than internal signal. The feedback loop is longer and more complete than inner monologue, and your brain perceives it more as information you heard from somewhere else than a simple thought.
The Hebrew word dabar is typically translated as “word,” but the concept sits closer to “event” or “deed.” A spoken word in the Hebrew mind was not just communication. It was something released into the world that went out and did something. Isaiah writes: “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty.” (Isaiah 55:11)
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The act of speaking it aloud gives these declarations a certain power that an inward thought does not quite have.
Now, you may be thinking this is all well and good, but how long do you have to do this for? Do you have to do it indefinitely, even adding new ones as you identify other things you should be declaring over your life? What sort of commitment are we talking about here?
There is not a clear cut answer. It most likely could not hurt you to make a routine of declaring positive things for the rest of your life. But is that what God is telling you to do? He is not a God that gives you a static set of instructions and tells you to just follow those instructions and you’ll be good. No, He is the map, and He wants constant relationship and communication with Him so that He can guide you in real time.
Maybe He does want you to routinely declare something for a season. Maybe for the rest of your life. Maybe the routine becomes so ingrained in you that you do not need it anymore, those positive words just outflow naturally throughout your day. He knows what you need to do.
So we encourage you to try these things out, but do not make this a religious habit without His input. It should come out of a relationship with God, a desire to speak His truth and love over your life. It should be something that realigns you with Him, not just a new life hack that you do for its mind benefits. The end goal of all this is relationship with Him, and we should always ask first if this is something He wants for us.
Meditation: Declaring Truth
May your words bring you closer to God.
