The Power of Words, the Loss of My Brother, and What’s To Come.


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The start of 2024 has been an emotional rollercoaster for our family. As many of you know, we tragically lost my brother in early January, and we are still grieving this tremendous loss. Yet, in the midst of grief, we’ve had moments of joy and celebration too. We were blessed to celebrate my wife Jennifer’s birthday in January, as well as our anniversary last week. This last month was pretty profound for us as a family.

Death has an amazing way of shrinking all of the things that we think are big and important, all the normal things of life, all of the things that we are constantly like, “Oh, this is major, we’ve got to do this,” and making us realize that those things don’t actually really matter that much. Through it all, this season has impressed on us the incredible power of our words. As we’ve parented our kids through this time, we’ve noticed how deeply they are shaped by the words we speak to them. Our words have power to create, and power to destroy. We have a desire to remind believers that we should recognize how powerful our words are and not be frivolous with them.

“How we express ourselves impacts others.”

It is also important to note that the way we say things or express our feelings can heavily impact how our words come across to others. What things have we said to others that they remember that have made a lasting impact on them? And was it good? Was it positive? Was it negative? What things are we saying to our children on a daily basis that they’re thinking and they’re starting to believe? Words are powerful in that they shape the way we and others perceive the world and what we choose to believe about it. They affect us, and those around us.

The serpent didn’t come with a weapon. He came with words and he used his words in a way to deceive, to convince. And so from the beginning of time, words have been the most powerful. We must ask ourselves, what words are we allowing to be heard in our homes? What words are we allowing to come out of our mouths over ourselves, over our kids? And what words are we not saying to our loved ones who don’t yet believe? Are we afraid to say certain words? Are we afraid to tell them the truth in love? Because at the end of the day, the words that we believe are going to guide our life and it’s going to lead us to either death or life.

Our prayer is that God uses this series to make us even more mindful of the power of our words and empowers us to use our speech to bless others just as God’s Word blesses us. Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love eat of its fruit. So what fruit are we allowing ourselves to eat? Death or life?

  • Proverbs 18:21 – “The tongue has the power of life and death”
  • Ephesians 4:29 – “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up”
  • Proverbs 12:18 – “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing”
  • Proverbs 15:1 – “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger”
  • Proverbs 16:24 – “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones”
  • James 1:26 – “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless”

READ TRANSCRIPT

Aaron Smith (00:02):

Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today. Hey, we’re and Jennifer Smith with the Marriage After God podcast.

Jennifer Smith (01:16):

Hi everyone.

Aaron Smith (01:17):

We’re here on video.

Jennifer Smith (01:19):

I can’t believe it. It’s been a long time video. I know

Aaron Smith (01:23):

This is, I’m nervous.

Jennifer Smith (01:24):

I’m nervous you brought me up here. Aaron’s been working for weeks on those little studio setup and just everything that you see. And babe, it looks really good.

Aaron Smith (01:34):

Believe it or not, I did this. I mean, I’ve had some help with some friends that are knowledgeable in this stuff and then I’ve also watched a lot of YouTube videos on setting up lights.

Jennifer Smith (01:44):

But I can tell that once you brought me up here and I actually sat down, you started fidgeting to get us set up and you look nervous.

Aaron Smith (01:50):

Well, I’m nervous about everything because I have new equipment and cameras and

Jennifer Smith (01:54):

Well, don’t be nervous.

Aaron Smith (01:56):

It’s going to be great. I hope it sounds good for y’all. We’re just going to give you a little format of what we’re doing. So we’re going to be looking at each other. We’re going

Jennifer Smith (02:05):

To be looking at you. We have no clue what

Aaron Smith (02:07):

We’re doing, and then we have notes next to the camera, so you might see us look over. That’s what we’re looking at is our notes.

Jennifer Smith (02:12):

I asked Erin when we started, I said, can it be relaxed? Can I look down at my jacket or, I dunno.

Aaron Smith (02:18):

Yeah, it is relaxed. So we’re going to be figuring this out as we go. I wanted to show you a clip because when we first started this podcast, we started it with video and it was in our old house

Jennifer Smith (02:29):

And

Aaron Smith (02:30):

We were set up in the kitchen and then it was facing the background. I just wanted to show a clip real quick of our old podcast. This is actually the first episode. I just wanted to get our reactions to this. So I was watching

Jennifer Smith (02:44):

For a second Thicker

Aaron Smith (02:46):

We’re Erin and Jennifer Smith with marriage after God

Jennifer Smith (02:48):

Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Aaron Smith (02:51):

Today we’re going to be talking about God’s calling for your marriage. Lots of people think they have a calling

Jennifer Smith (02:56):

Or calling. I remember saying that phrase so often, so

Aaron Smith (03:00):

Much. We said that every

Jennifer Smith (03:01):

Time. Every single time. For a long time. For a

Aaron Smith (03:04):

Long time. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith (03:04):

That’s

Aaron Smith (03:05):

Funny. If you notice, I still have my plugs in back then and your hair is blonde.

Jennifer Smith (03:10):

I know, and it was long and thick. Wow. I’ve been working on trying to grow my hair back out for some time.

Aaron Smith (03:16):

I really miss that house by the way. I know that’s the house that Edith was born in.

Jennifer Smith (03:19):

So why don’t you share why we stopped doing video. We did it for two years almost, I

Aaron Smith (03:24):

Think. Yeah. We did video for quite a while,

Jennifer Smith (03:26):

Which if you want to go back and check out some of those old videos, they’re all on. YouTube’s still up on YouTube,

Aaron Smith (03:31):

And so you’ll be watching these videos on YouTube next to those ones. Very cool. We stopped because I mean, we had a lot of babies

Jennifer Smith (03:38):

In a short amount of time

Aaron Smith (03:39):

And I was trying to make it very easy for you and me and so instead of trying to, it was hard doing it right at nap time and getting it perfectly quiet and still in the house and that was just a lot of

Jennifer Smith (03:49):

Activity. I also had to clean the house so that the background looked pretty and put makeup on. There was just a lot going

Aaron Smith (03:53):

On because our studio was our home. Now we can have this kind of off to the side, which is kind of nice. So

Jennifer Smith (03:59):

This is just going to stay set up like this. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (04:01):

Cool. And so we went to audio only and we did that for a long time and now we’re back at video.

Jennifer Smith (04:06):

Cool. And we did it. There was some people asking us, some people, some viewers wanting to see us back.

Aaron Smith (04:13):

There was a lot of people wanting more videos and I actually, I went on YouTube and some of our old videos have tens of thousands of views and I was like, man, there’s a whole audience on YouTube that wants to watch content. So

Jennifer Smith (04:23):

I think it was easier for Aaron to be gung-ho about it. I took some convincing,

Aaron Smith (04:29):

Well, I get excited about this stuff and then I get super nervous. I’m like, okay, how’s this going to work? So I think we should talk to him. We haven’t launched a podcast since

Jennifer Smith (04:39):

Mid-December. December

Aaron Smith (04:41):

And I feel really bad. I went back and listened to our last podcast and we’re like, we have a couple more episodes before the end of the year and we didn’t post anything and there’s some reasons for that. There was quite a few things that came up right in December, my dad got sick and was in the hospital for a little bit, and so

Jennifer Smith (04:58):

You actually flew out there right away and you were there for about a week to be with your mom and him.

Aaron Smith (05:04):

And then only I think a week after getting home, my brother died. So we might talk about that a little bit today, but the moment we got that phone call packed up the van and left, and so we left the house as it was and we spent over about a month in California with my parents, just a morning with them and working through family stuff. I don’t know if any of you have gone through a loss in the family like this, but we’re still dealing with stuff. It’s something

Jennifer Smith (05:37):

That it was definitely like we don’t encounter the confrontation of death often. Yeah. It’s not especially close family. So this was a really challenging time for you and your immediate family. I was really grateful that you made a way for us to go right away. I think that both your mom and dad really needed that time and your nephew

Aaron Smith (06:03):

And I needed it. I know part of me was like, I’m going there for them, but at the same time I’m to be comforting. I needed to be with my family and experience all of that. We’re still dealing with stuff, of course, we’re still trying to figure things out and taking it one day at a time. And

Jennifer Smith (06:18):

I think for me with the,

Aaron Smith (06:19):

You’d be praying for our family for that. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith (06:22):

I was going to say for me with that experience, I felt like God was teaching me how to be a helper to those who are walking through grief and just trying to think of things that would be a help to you, be a help to your parents. And even in the small things like asking if I can water their plants or Hey, have you been taking your daily vitamins or anything that you’re not thinking of that I can help with, you actually made sure that their washer and dryer got fixed because

Aaron Smith (06:53):

That was, we actually got ’em replaced because they kept leaking all over the place. That was actually, it was really good. We went down there and a part of being there was helping them like, Hey, let’s figure some things out because it’s crazy how all the normal things of life just go out the window. We didn’t do almost any work. Praise God. We were able to take

Jennifer Smith (07:16):

That break to add that flexibility,

Aaron Smith (07:18):

But helping them with things that probably felt impossible at the time and it was also good for me. It got my mind off things, but I also found myself learning a lot about just existing because there’s no answers, there is no solution to these things. It’s just, okay, we’re here and we get to walk through it. And so just figuring out how to be there with my mom, be there with my dad, be there with my nephew and not have all the answers and pray and comfort and hug and laugh too. Watch TV and home funniest videos. It was comforting for sure. That was our January, in December, so

Jennifer Smith (08:04):

We also had a few celebrations, which I know in the midst of grief, it’s hard to find time to celebrate. So we didn’t really do much, but we recognized my birthday and our anniversary and just made them special as we could.

Aaron Smith (08:20):

And we both also understood there wasn’t much to do because of where we were at and what we were dealing with, but we still recognize them and usually we actually had a really cool party planned that got thrown out the window and that’s okay. Maybe next year we talked about that with our friends, but

Jennifer Smith (08:37):

Sometimes things change though, and just, I am also glad that we’re sharing this because I think just thinking about the new year, I think for a lot of couples it doesn’t always start out the way you intend. And that’s true for not even the new year, but just maybe tomorrow or next week you have these expectations or you think something’s going to turn out one way until you get hit with some information or news that inconvenience, it’s very difficult to process and handle. And so I think it’s really important that couples get reminded that we’re not guaranteed to be able to follow through with everything that we’ve planned or everything that we have on our to-do list and that we need to be able to support each other when those times come.

Aaron Smith (09:23):

And death has an amazing way of shrinking all of the things that we think are big, all the normal things of life, all of the things that we are constantly like, oh, we got to get this done, we got to do this. It’s like, oh, that doesn’t actually really matter that much. And so it’s very sobering. It gives you some tunnel vision to see a specific like, oh, we need to be having our eyes on some, keeping the main things, the main things. And so this last month was pretty profound for us as a family.

Jennifer Smith (09:55):

So while we were there visiting and being comforted and comforting, I took a little bit of homeschool for the kids and you had a little bit of work, but kind of just basic. Yeah, very little. So that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t launch the podcast fresh in the new year.

Aaron Smith (10:12):

And we’ve only been back for two weeks, two and a half weeks.

Jennifer Smith (10:15):

So Aaron’s been working really hard on getting all of this set up and also just working on the content for you guys. But we did have a new kind of experience for you for this season, this year of the podcast, the Marriage After God podcast, which we’re excited to share with you guys. So I dunno if you want to jump into that.

Aaron Smith (10:33):

Yeah, we’re going to be, so last year we tried doing one every week. We missed a handful of weeks. I think we did 39 episodes. We did

Jennifer Smith (10:40):

A lot,

Aaron Smith (10:41):

A lot more episodes than usual, which was awesome. So this year, instead of just going week by week, what we’re going to do is we’re going to do eight week seasons and they’re going to be series focused. We did a series last year on prayer and it was actually really well received. We’re going to be doing a handful of series where we do eight weeks on a specific topic, specific topic, but it’s going to be broken up in all different types of aspects. It’s not going to be the same thing every single time. And this first season, this first series that we’re going to do is going to be on words. And so I’m just giving you a little precursor to that and that’s what this series is going to be on.

Jennifer Smith (11:20):

So I think how we’ll do it is we’ll do six to eight weeks on a topic and then take a short break, whether it’s a week or two weeks, and then we’ll jump into a new topic and we’ll kind of do that throughout the year.

Aaron Smith (11:30):

And we’re already working on those series of topics that we’re going to be doing and then filling out notes for those so that we are ready for it. Sometimes. Oh, that two weeks turns into two months. We don’t

Jennifer Smith (11:42):

Want that. Plus I was just telling Aaron that normally we would both be working on the content and be sitting in front of the computer while we’re recording and so we can kind of stop and go as we want or read our notes, which is really comforting to me because I’m not really good at off the cuff conversation like this, but I told him that I would. Hopefully we

Aaron Smith (12:03):

Get good at it this

Jennifer Smith (12:03):

Year. Yeah, we are going to get good at it this year. I told Aaron that I would be willing and so having the content done ahead of time so that we can really wrap our heads around it and just give you guys the best experience for the things that we’re covering, it would just make this flow really well. And so I’m really excited. I’m really excited for the dynamic of how video and how we’re doing the series will really play out.

Aaron Smith (12:28):

And if you’ve been an avid listener and now watcher, like a viewer of our videos this year, I’d really love to see all of our listeners and viewers really be spreading the word, sharing the videos, sharing the audio. We’re going to be creating social media posts based off the video clips. That was another reason I wanted to start doing video because it makes much more fun social media posts with the grab

Jennifer Smith (12:51):

And go.

Aaron Smith (12:52):

And if you’re a longtime listener, I want to commission you to share our content, share these videos, share these episodes with friends, family, and partner with us on that. So

Jennifer Smith (13:06):

Not only does it help us because we get encouraged to see everyone who’s following along and it motivates us to want to keep going. But we really do pour a lot into the content and we want to share this with you guys and hope that it brings encouragement to you and to your marriages. So as you share the word and as you share it with friends and family, they will also get the benefit of what we’re sharing.

Aaron Smith (13:29):

And on YouTube you can leave comments.

Jennifer Smith (13:31):

Nice.

Aaron Smith (13:32):

Do it. And so if you’re watching on YouTube, leave us some comments and we’ll be checking those out and responding to ones we can.

Jennifer Smith (13:38):

Before we get into the topic, I think that you should at least mention why it looks like you’ve got a little bit of makeup on night. I know.

Aaron Smith (13:48):

I was just going to show everyone you see

Jennifer Smith (13:50):

Here, I told them, Aaron, this is really, I got to get shine. I said, this is really bad timing.

Aaron Smith (13:55):

I know. So we are still doing Juujitsu even though we took a month off being in California, I go back to Juujitsu, I’m like there a couple days and a good friend of ours that started going to our church,

Jennifer Smith (14:06):

You can’t blame it on him,

Aaron Smith (14:08):

It’s his fault. No, it was totally an accident. But we were rolling with each other and he accidentally ran the eye.

Jennifer Smith (14:14):

You didn’t even know you had, it didn’t even hurt. You got home. And I said, Ooh, what happened? And you went to go touch it and your hand, your thumb

Aaron Smith (14:20):

Rolled over, rubbed over this big old bump bump. It doesn’t hurt at all, but it’s totally black if you can see. And then this morning at Juujitsu, I got knee right in the head. So there’s a pretty good bump right here. So now on video you get to see all the bumps and bruises I get when I go to Jiujitsu and I’m

Jennifer Smith (14:39):

Not going, but you’re still going strong.

Aaron Smith (14:40):

I was thinking about putting some sort of foundation or something out. I’m not going to do that.

Jennifer Smith (14:43):

Don’t do it.

Aaron Smith (14:44):

Don’t not going to do that. Okay. Thank you for bringing that up. I’m sure people will be like, what’s

Jennifer Smith (14:49):

Going on? They were going to ask in the comments. I knew it. I could feel it.

Aaron Smith (14:51):

Yeah. Olive’s like, dad, it looks like you’re wearing makeup. I’m like, yeah, only on one eye. Yeah, I should at least balance it out.

Jennifer Smith (14:58):

You should let her

Aaron Smith (14:59):

Fix it for you. You fix this side, that letter. She would actually probably really love that. I’m not going to

Jennifer Smith (15:04):

Do that. Do people know what’s going on behind us? Do you want to share a

Aaron Smith (15:07):

Little bit? Yeah. So Mag back here, I have friends, they’re like, you’re missing the a. I’m like, that’s a different podcast. I do a late night podcast when I talk politics. So that’s marriage after God. That’s our acronym. And then we just have all of our books back here in some bibles and there’s show him cute photos.

Jennifer Smith (15:27):

Our wedding, there’s a picture of

Aaron Smith (15:27):

Us from our wedding day back there.

Jennifer Smith (15:30):

I was really goofy. I still am really goofy, but I knew the photographer was standing in front of us and I jumped on Aaron’s back.

Aaron Smith (15:36):

Yeah, Ben, that’s my favorite photo from our wedding. Yeah, it really is. That was 17 years ago now as our anniversary in January 17 years married

Jennifer Smith (15:46):

High five.

Aaron Smith (15:47):

We did it.

Jennifer Smith (15:48):

Sorry if that was loud in your ears. I know.

Aaron Smith (15:50):

Yeah. I actually don’t know how sensitive these are. Okay. So we’re glad you’re here and we’re going to be talking about a lot of cool stuff this year. And if you follow us on social media and you have ideas for us, we’d love to hear ’em. Love to hear

Jennifer Smith (16:06):

Today’s episode because we had so much to share with you guys. And kind of start off introducing all of this. It’s going to be a briefer on the content side. This

Aaron Smith (16:16):

Is like an introductory video of this new year and we actually, we wanted to start in January, like we said, we couldn’t and we’re happy to start in February and we’re going to have a lot of fun with it this year, I think. Alright, why the topic of words? Because we’re going to be talking about words over the next eight episodes. And so I wanted to just give you a precursor to why that topic. Because last year, did we have a word last year for the year?

Jennifer Smith (16:45):

I had one. You had one? Yeah. I don’t know. I think I shared it on a podcast episode in the beginning of the year.

Aaron Smith (16:49):

But that’s kind of a thing. It’s been a trend over the last handful of years that people are like, what’s your word for the year? That’s not why we’re doing this, but it makes sense because people like to identify with words they strength and that has meaning and purpose and value and it’s something easy to hold onto. So we want to talk about not just words in that sense, but words in the holistic sense of how powerful they are in general. Because whether we like it or not, whether we understand.

Aaron Smith (17:48):

And it or not, whether we know it or not, the words that we use and believe and speak to ourselves and speak to others have massive impact in our lives. And so we plan on talking about that over the next few episodes. And it actually came out of, I am thankful that I was able to talk to my brother for about two hours, just a few days before he passed away. I didn’t know he was going to pass away, but I got this phone call and I was able to FaceTime with him for about 30 minutes, but for an hour and a half ago was on the phone with him and I got to talk with him a lot. He was not a believer and I’m very sad about that. And my whole conversation with him was talking to him about death, was talking to him about the gospel, was talking to him about the things that he believed and over and over and over again, I just kept hearing the words that he was saying and it was breaking my heart because he believed those words, he believed those things that he was saying so much and it led to his death and it hurts me.

(18:53)
And so when I think about the power of the words and the messages that we hold onto that we listen to that we speak inside of our hearts, that we speak to other people, everyone that’s listening and watching right now probably can look back to a time when someone said something to them and that has stuck with them their entire life and we don’t realize it. But there’s many things you might have that one kind of cornerstone moment where you’re like, oh, someone said this to me one time. I’ve heard it from many people, but there’s so many more that we don’t even think about that shapes the way we think, shapes the way we act, shapes the way we believe, shapes the way we hear things. And so we have a desire to point that out that if we as believers can recognize how powerful words are and not be frivolous with them

Jennifer Smith (19:51):

And not just point ’em out, but also come with a challenge to self-evaluate ourselves the way we use our words like you said, the words we believe, but also the way in which we share our words like our tone and just everything about our body language. Because how we express ourselves impacts others. Like Erin is saying, there’s things that people have said things to us that we remember, but what things have we said to others that they remember that have made a lasting impact on them? And was it good? Was it positive? Was it negative? What things are we saying to our children on a daily basis that they’re thinking and they’re starting to believe? So these are all very important things that we want to come with a challenge of, Hey, are we willing to take a look inward and see what we’re saying

Aaron Smith (20:39):

And also be better listeners of the words that we say and here, what words are we allowing into our life? What messages are we holding onto? And be like, wait a minute, is that even from God? And so those are the kinds of things that we want to talk about. We see it in our family, we see it with our children. Along these lines of thinking about the power of words, I started feeling really convicted on what kind of words am I allowing my kids to listen to over and over again, maybe from a TV show or from a song or for music. So what are these messages? What are these words that are being repeated to them, that are getting stuck in their heads, that are on repeat over and over and over again? And then like you said, what words are we saying?

(21:19)
And are we saying them often enough to make them, to make them repeatable, make them memorable. Make them stuck in their hearts. And so talking about these things, we were talking with our kids at a bible time, and I’m not sure if you have children that struggle with the kinds of things that they say to each other, but our kids, they struggle with the words they say, being kind, being kind or patient or gentle or generous. And so we sat ’em down at a family Bible time was like, we’re going to talk about words. And I was sharing with them about how powerful our tongues are and how amazing it is that we can create words and that we can use words and we can without a tongue. You just went, oh, it just sounds, but the tongue, it creates words. And if you think about, that’s an amazing thing.

(22:10)
It’s pretty cool. And so we read to them, James and I was talking to ’em like how the tongue is a fire and a little flame can start a whole forest on fire. And that’s how powerful our words are. Another verse that I shared with him was Psalm 1914. It says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. I brought up to him, I said, this is the heart that we should have. This is David hard. He prayed this to God and he said, God, look at my heart. What am I saying? And it was not just the meditation of his heart, but it was the words of his mouth. He’s saying, what am I saying? And I pray that what I’m saying is acceptable to you. And how often do we think about that?

Jennifer Smith (22:55):

It’s so important. You are actually just bringing up at church on Sunday, how destructive our tongues can be and how it could be one of the most destructive weapons, even more so than bombs or artillery because it’s something that’s used in people’s life and on a daily basis.

Aaron Smith (23:12):

Yeah, actually that was, I told the church, we were talking about the weapons that come against us will not succeed. And I said, but swords and knives and guns and bombs, those aren’t the most powerful weapons’. Words have always been the most powerful

Jennifer Smith (23:24):

Weapons. That’s what we think of when we think of weaponry. We think of all those harsh, crazy, hurtful things. But then we have every person out there with a mouth that can speak and use their words to hurt people

Aaron Smith (23:39):

And to give ideas

Jennifer Smith (23:40):

Or to be divisive.

Aaron Smith (23:43):

And I think of Adam and Eve, the devil. The serpent didn’t come with a weapon. He came with words and he used his words in a way to deceive, to convince. And so from the beginning of time, words have been the most powerful weapon. And so that’s what our tongues are. They can tear down or they can build up. And the words that we decide to use and the words that we decide to believe inside of us,

Jennifer Smith (24:14):

Knowing that we were going to be talking about this topic. You had mentioned that lately you’ve been seeing a lot of stuff on Instagram like reels or pastors and you’ve been sending ’em to me.

Aaron Smith (24:25):

I am not kidding. So we started talking about this. We started what do words mean? How powerful are they? How can we talk about this? All of a sudden everyone’s posting about it. I follow Victor Marks. I don’t know if any of you follow Victor Marks, he’s an awesome guy. He shared a Ted talk from someone and this guy was talking about how powerful words are, and he was showing how he can say things in a certain way to convince you of something even though it’s not true. And I was like, and I’ve been seeing posts after post post of people talking about words. It’s almost like there’s a, there’s people are curious about this and are being challenged with it themselves.

Jennifer Smith (25:05):

Is there anything like an experience that you’ve had lately that has really affirmed you where someone said something to you that encouraged you?

Aaron Smith (25:14):

Yeah. While we were in California, my mom sat down with us and she’s like, I want to share with you some things that I’ve been feeling and seeing and encouraged us on areas that we can be more protective in our marriage. She’s like, you’re in ministry, you have five kids, you have all these things going on. She’s like, you want to protect and not let the enemy to have anything. And that encouragement was pivotal for us. We’re like, you’re right. I didn’t really appreciate that. We need to be so careful in these various areas because we don’t want to give any room for the enemy to, oh, I’m going to take that. Oh, I’m going to use that. And so that was her just trying to love us and she just shared some things from her heart and those words that she shared actually caused us to make some transitions and some shifts in our life to focus on different things. That’s one person. Now imagine who else you allow in your life when you scroll, you’re constantly scrolling through hundreds of sometimes thousands of influencers telling you things. What are you listening to? Whose words are you saying, yeah, I’m going to take, those are mine now.

Jennifer Smith (26:20):

I had an experience while we were in California as well. It was actually the night before we left. My mom sat down on the couch next to me and all the kids were on the couch and she said, Jennifer, I don’t know if you need to hear this, but you’re a really good mom. And I wanted to cry, but I also didn’t want her to see me cry. So

Aaron Smith (26:36):

She was being so sweet while you

Jennifer Smith (26:38):

Were there. She was so sweet. Love that I turned around and said, thank you, mom. And she said, seriously, on top of everything that you’ve got going on. And she knew it’s been a lot this month. She goes, your kids are so awesome and I just love you guys. And just how soft landing every word that came out of her mouth was meant a lot to me. And those are some sets of words that I will cherish and keep for.

Aaron Smith (27:02):

And I think that’s a good point. You brought this up I think a little earlier, and you actually, this has been a main theme in our marriage. Not just what I say, but how it’s said, how it’s presented, how it’s packaged up and here you go. This is what I want to say. How it’s said doesn’t necessarily change the meaning of the words, but it might change how they’re received or heard or not heard. Well,

Jennifer Smith (27:28):

I think the trouble becomes implied when you say something a certain way. So regardless of what the message is that you’re trying to share, if you say it a certain way or with a certain attitude or a certain

Aaron Smith (27:43):

Or passive aggressiveness. Yeah. Well, because two ways we can give messages with our words and with our body language and with our actions. And those kind of either they coincide with each other and I think that’s where the problem is. We talked about discrepancies last year.

Jennifer Smith (28:01):

That was my word for last

Aaron Smith (28:02):

Year. You say one thing, but everything else surrounding it doesn’t match. And you’re like, are you really saying that? So there’s a lot to be said about words.

Jennifer Smith (28:12):

Yeah. So some words are really familiar to many of us, especially if they’re written down. So I went through the, didn’t go through the whole Bible, but I was thinking about the Bible in different stories or phrases that are very familiar to us. The first one, obviously in the very beginning, Genesis one, three, God said, let there be light. And what a powerful moment for words to have power.

Aaron Smith (28:39):

I think it was the most powerful

Jennifer Smith (28:40):

Moment. It was incredible because they were creating things. God was creating things with his words. And we’re going to be talking more about that later. Was

Aaron Smith (28:48):

It all of who brought that up the other day? Yes. When I was saying The tongue is powerful. And she’s like, yeah, God created everything with words, which he did.

Jennifer Smith (28:56):

So cool. Another one is Exodus five, one, when Moses says to Pharaoh, let my people go. It’s a phrase and it’s been around for hundreds of, sorry. Yeah. Loving that. No, I know. No, I was going to say that those words came after hundreds of years of bondage and even thousands of years after they’ve been said, we still remember them.

Aaron Smith (29:21):

That’s a good point.

Jennifer Smith (29:22):

If I could just get what I meant to say out of my mouth. And then another one in John five, eight, Jesus says to the sick Man, get up. Take your bed and walk. That was a miracle happening. His words were the authority of what you couldn’t do, you can do now. Go do it.

Aaron Smith (29:41):

And it makes me think about how powerful we think about messages that we’ve heard and words that we’ve heard that have shaped our societies. We have the founding documents. We have people like Martin Luther King Jr. We have, and I can say these people’s names, and you can immediately be like, oh, I know I have a dream. You, you’ll say a phrase and that means something and it directs and it guides. And that’s exactly what James talks about with the tongue being so small of a member, but it guides your entire life.

Jennifer Smith (30:11):

What about these last words that Jesus spoke right before his death on the cross, John 1930? He said, it is finished the power in those words.

Aaron Smith (30:21):

It’s really beautiful. And it’s words like that that make the gospel happen. So when you tell people the gospel when he said it is finished, either it is or it isn’t. I tell people that all the time. Like, well, he said it’s finished. Is it or not? And so those words are so powerful that it challenges you to either believe them or not believe them. And that the words that we think and believe and say do the same thing in our own lives every single day, every moment of the day.

Jennifer Smith (30:53):

Yeah. These words in these phrases that have been ingrained in us, come out of us and they affect those around us. They affect us. And so again, this is just why Aaron and I really felt strongly that words would be our first series this year that we would dive into it for you guys and with you guys just to be able to check our hearts and evaluate how words are impacting us.

Aaron Smith (31:19):

So the topics that we’re going to be talking about is words. It matters. And our prayer and our hope is that we can dig in deep. There’s going to be lots of scripture, hopefully lots of stories, and we want our listeners and viewers to subscribe so that they don’t miss any episodes that are going to be coming up over the next eight weeks. And I want you to be considering, I want you to be considering what are the words that you hear repeated in your mind and in your heart all the time? Because the ones that are being repeated, they’re things that you’re believing, the things that they’re guiding your life. And after experiencing what I went through with my brother, the thing that I’ve been encouraging our church, the thing that I’m encouraging us in our family is to stop being lazy about what it is we’re listening to.

(32:11)
What words are we allowing to be heard in our homes? What words are we allowing to come out of our mouths over ourselves, over our kids? And also, what words are we not saying to our loved ones who don’t yet believe? What words are we not saying? Are we afraid to say certain words? Are we afraid to tell them the truth in love? Because at the end of the day, the words that we believe are going to guide our life and it’s going to us to either death or life. And I mean, that’s what the Bible tells us. Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love eat of its fruit. So what fruit are we allowing ourselves to eat? Death or life? And so you have any more encouragement for them.

Jennifer Smith (32:52):

I think that’s great for now. We do want to encourage you guys to pray with us at the end of every episode. It’s just something that we’ve always done and we’d love to continue doing. Alright.

Aaron Smith (33:02):

Will you pray for us? Yes.

Jennifer Smith (33:03):

Dear Lord, we just come before you right now and we just thank you so much for today. We thank you for the launch of this new series in the Marriage After God podcast. And we just ask, Lord, that as we focus on our words and as we self-evaluate, you would encourage us to look deeply within and just be willing to remove anything, any words that we shouldn’t be believing, any words that we shouldn’t be using, anything around us that we shouldn’t be listening to or receiving. And we just pray, Lord, that we would allow your holy word to soak into us and just saturate us, Lord, saturate our mind, saturate our hearts. We just pray, Lord, that your word would continue to transform us every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Aaron Smith (33:50):

Amen. That was it. Okay.

Jennifer Smith (33:55):

I dunno

Aaron Smith (33:56):

How to end. See you guys next time.

Jennifer Smith (33:57):

Bye.

Aaron Smith (34:14):

Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today. 

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