Hello and welcome to the Bridgestown Daily for February 5th. My name is Matthews Agnes.

I want to take a moment to invite you to think about the words that come out of your mouth.

On average, you speak around 16,000 words a day. Now that can change, of course.

And there's been a study that said, women speak 20,000 and men speak 13,000.

But what's more accurate is the average being around 16,000.

And after my daughter, you probably speak closer to 25,000.

My five and a half year old daughter loves to talk. She talks all day every day.

If you're myself, you find words to be not important at times.

You probably speak around 13 or 12,000 words a day.

Now the number is not what's important here. What I want to know is how many of those words matter?

How many have depth? How many of them give life? Or how many of them take it?

How many of them are cursing or hurtful?

There's many verses in the scriptures that talk about the power that's in our mouth with the words that we speak.

Think of Proverbs 1821. The tongue has the power of life and death.

And those who love it will eat its fruit.

You have the power today to speak life to someone, to give them life, or to speak death to curse, to hurt.

You have the power to give fruit that's sweet, or to give something that's toxic, that doesn't taste good.

I think a Matthew 1236, a sobering verse to take in.

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.

That's scary to think about that.

In the end, you're going to have to give account for the empty words you've spoken.

Your words matter. Speak words that are full, that are healthy, that are good, that are kind, that are uplifting.

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