“All too often… the voices that speak early and deep into our souls are more destructive than constructive.”

A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus, (2014-02-25) from his book, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art (p. 42). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

That is so true for so many adults today.  Erwin says, “I meet so many people who carry an internal narrative that they have no value and no worth, and are not worthy of love. Some forty-year-old men are still fighting off voices that spoke to them when they were four years old.”

What voices inside of you are you listening to?  Maybe it is the voice of an unpleasable parent who listened to their unpleasable parent and lived with that voice inside them and carried it through to you.  Maybe it was a teacher or a coach.  Maybe it was someone who believed in you.  That voice of mom or dad who did all they could to make you feel special resounds inside of you every time you face something new.  What voice are you listening to?

Erwin continues, “What others think of us, what others have said about us matters, has power, only when it becomes what we think of ourselves and what we say to ourselves about who we are.”

So there is a choice for us.  If it is a negative, put-down voice then we need to do all we can to ignore that voice.  And that can be very tough but it can be done. 

I have for many years spent a lot of time in the book of Psalms in the Old Testament.  It has a way of being honest about the laments of our lives and then turning them into praises.  Psalm 109:30 & 31 (NLT) says, “But I will give repeated thanks to the Lord, praising him to everyone. For he stands beside the needy, ready to save them from those who condemn them.”   Do all you can to break the negative voices of your past and listen to the positive voices of the present and of your future.  Change the deconstructive into constructive.   

Psalm 126: 1– 2 says, “When the LORD brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!  We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy.”  Let Him start to change the voice inside of you to hope, dreams and joy.

What voice do you listen to?