August 16, 2026 - Speak Life; Bind Bitterness

All right.

Here we go.

Week three, speaking life.

Over the last two weeks, we've looked at how we can consider the words that come out of our mouths, perhaps sometimes before they do, and how we might do a better job with those words, using them to build up instead of to tear down.

And so we've worked at cornering criticism, and we've worked at harnessing hearsay.

And last week I proposed three Es as the reason for inclination to gossip.

The three things that, that really cause us to, to stumble and fall around gossip or talking about people or sharing stuff that's not our business.

And so those three Es are envy, ego, and ease.

And so we know that envy-- We know, we know envy, don't we? Envy is typically experienced when somebody, often somebody who we are already in some sort of comparison, um, or competition with, seems like they are doing better than we are, or doing more than we are, and we get a little envious.

Then there's ego, and we all have one, and some of our egos are a little more fragile than others.

And when someone gets acknowledged or gets credit for something or is rewarded or elevated in some way, especially in a way that we are not or in a way that we want to be, our egos get a little wounded.

We can feel unseen, unworthy, or disliked.

We can feel insignificant or forgotten, and so we default to diminishing.

And then there's ease.

There's ease.

And even if we, we never get envious, even if our egos are not fragile, we all are looking for ease at one point or another.

And we try to put ourselves at ease more often than not because at least in relationship to that which leads us to, to gossip or to use our words poorly, we look for ease with ourselves.

So we, we do some of that comparison.

"Well, at least we're not as bad as that person." Or we look for ease through agreement.

We want others to journey with us into disbelief at how someone is struggling in ways that maybe we don't or somebody doesn't understand what seems very obvious to us, and we just can't believe how foolish they are or that they would do this thing that we would never do.

And that's ease.