Despite my best efforts, I have never been much of a gardener. 

This is disappointing to me, because in theory, gardening sounds like the most idyllic of pastimes. In my mind, I can easily insert myself into the backdrop of a Marjolein Bastein painting, sinking hands into hungry soil and planting the embryos of beautiful flowers and towering trees. Then, watching the springing green of the first shoots and nurturing the tender new growth. And finally, rejoicing in a crop of breathtaking blooms or luscious vegetables—the loving labor of sweat and soul over the eager earth. 

However, every time I’ve attempted gardening, my reality is—well, let’s just say it’s far less picturesque. 

Instead of enchanting scenes of tranquility, my gardening experiences are pitiable sketches of flounderings and failures. Like the time I planted a lantana bush in the middle of summer and promptly forgot I had done so—at least, until I stumbled over its crunchy leaves weeks later. Or the time I watered a flower patch with a single-minded determination that left the seedlings choking for air. Or the time I fell in love with a particular variety of sun-loving plants and decided I could make them work in my own shady area (spoiler alert: no). 

And sometimes the tragedy that inevitably befalls my plants isn’t even my fault. Sometimes I’ve done all the right things—watered appropriately, weeded religiously, selected optimal varieties for the habitat—and still, what I consider my anti-green thumb finds a way to manifest itself. I had a cluster of dianthus plants who thrived happily for three seasons, returning year after year, until they all mysteriously turned brown and withered away. The lettuce seeds I planted in my vegetable garden a few years ago thrived—until I awoke one morning to find that the stalks had been snipped to the ground. And so far, I have even managed to kill not one, not two, but three small houseplants. The clincher? They were all cactus plants. Truly, I can’t think of a greater mark of doom for a would-be gardener.

Yet for some reason, I still nurtured buoyant hopes that I would transform from a plant executioner into a bona fide gardener. After all, my mother can pay two dollars for a mostly dead plant off a sale rack at the nursery and coax it into something wonderful by the end of the season. Surely, I reasoned, these gardening powers were genetic; sooner or later, I’d manifest this latent trait. 

And so, every spring, I found myself at the greenhouse, armed with a six-pack of annuals and a bursting swell of confidence for the season ahead. But every year, my plants would fail. Until finally, in desperation, I adopted a different approach. 

I still visited the greenhouse, still selected a pack of flowers. I still planted them in the same location and gave them the same care. But then I did something different—something radical. Something that was possibly bizarre and definitely embarrassing (at least at first). I began talking to my plants. 

I’d never carried on conversations with plants before, so certainly, at first it felt awkward. But as the summer continued, so did our one-sided chat. Every time I passed their area or watered them or pulled weeds from around them, I praised them—telling them how beautiful they were and how tall they were growing and how proud I was of their efforts. 

It was an experiment that felt more wacky than wise, but within just a few weeks, I was startled by the results. The plants were taller and healthier and had more blooms than I’d ever expected. And their prosperity continued—in fact, they thrived all the way through the season until the first frost. 

Curious now, I waited until the next spring and then deliberately chose a variety of plants that I thought would be truly difficult to grow. When I’d planted them in the past, they’d either withered immediately or simply stagnated throughout the season. If my experiment could work with these fragile plants, I reasoned, there might be something to it. 

Again, I repeated my tactic of planting them in the same area and then praising them as I watered and weeded. To my shock, the plants that normally drooped dead within a few weeks thrived. They produced a daily shower of bursting blooms, grew larger and healthier than I’d ever seen, and even, at the end of the season, offered fluffy white seed pods—fulfilling their life cycle with grace. My experiment had been proven! 

But this experience did more than simply teach me how to successfully cultivate plants. It forced me to confront a truth that’s so often overlooked: the power of our words.

We’re so careless with our words, aren’t we? Research tells us that the average human speaks over seven thousand words every single day (and my family and friends believe my average to be higher than that!). And like any readily available and commonplace resource, our words tend to be thrown about without conscious thought or focused mindfulness. We need to realize that the words that come across our minds, through our screens, or out of our mouths are far from random arrangements of letters. They matter—and they shape both us and those around us. 

It’s no surprise, then, that the Bible constantly urges us to choose our words with care. Peter reminded his readers that “whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil” (1 Peter 3:10 NIV). Likewise, Paul urged the Ephesian church, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29 NIV). The wisest man on earth, King Solomon, took these admonitions a step farther: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21 ESV). 

Death and life. It sounds like a metaphor, even an exaggeration, but it’s far from it. You see, words—whether they’re flowing from our mouths, pelting us from others, or simply scribbled across our minds—lie at the root of our spiritual lives. In his epistle, James references this subject in a fascinating way, comparing the tongue to the bit used in a horse’s bridle. Just as a large, powerful horse can be controlled by the tiny piece of metal in her mouth, our souls and spirits can be turned by the tongue. As James reminds us, a poisonous tongue has a deadly power capable of “staining the whole body [and] setting on fire the entire course of life” (James 3:6 ESV). However, he assures his readers that “if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” (v. 2b). In other words, controlling our spirits, our bodies, and indeed the direction of our lives must start with monitoring the tongue. 

I don’t know about you, but this is sobering to me. How many times have I snapped a reply in response to irritation or fear? How many times have I allowed negative statements to hover over my shoulders until they wrote their way into my story? How many of my seven thousand words every day lift up the Name of Jesus or give encouragement to others, and how many are devoted only to nursing fears or airing my selfish concerns?

These are hard questions, but they’re ones we must face—with others, and with ourselves.

You see, many of us are already aware of the dangers of careless words, at least when it comes to others. But when we’re with ourselves, we lack the filter of public opinion. Frustration, fear, guilt, shame, discouragement, or anger may be blocked by the dam of our regard for others, but they will find an outlet in the ways we talk to ourselves. 

It’s shockingly, sickeningly easy to fall into a negative pattern of addressing our bodies, minds, and spirits with disrespect or open hostility. We speak to ourselves with tones and words we would never use with a trusted friend. And as a result, we’re hurting ourselves—blocking the flow of the Spirit in our lives, preventing ourselves from becoming all that we could be in Him. 

I realized the power of speech as I watched my fragile plants sprout healthy leaves, burst into flower, and thrive, all during one of the hottest summers on record. Nothing about the way I cared for them changed. And certainly I didn’t become a skilled gardener overnight. The only thing I changed was my words toward them—and it made all the difference. And it was convicting for me. I realized that if my words were powerful enough to change the growth pattern of my plants, then they were no doubt powerful enough to alter my own growth and health as well. And I began to wonder what miracles changing my narrative toward myself might create.  

So what can we do? What steps should we take to make our words work for us, not against us? 

First, we have to make the choice. James attacks this issue again within his epistle: “With [our tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (v.9). You can hear the passion in his final statement: “My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (v. 10). Just as Jesus urged His disciples to choose one master, and Moses urged the Israelites to choose the One God, James urges us today to choose either blessing or cursing. When I planted my flowers, I decided I would not allow them to hear any negative talk from me. When I was within “earshot” of my plants, I didn’t criticize my own gardening skills or compare them to other flowers or comment on the days they looked wilted. And we must make the same choice regarding ourselves—that we will not allow negative talk to have the final say in our hearts and minds. 

But it’s not enough to simply refrain from negative talk. Instead, we have to actively and intentionally replace it with positive speech, just as I did with my flowers. Every word I said to them was gentle and kind, a word of encouragement—how pretty their flowers were, or how brave they’d been during the hot afternoons, or how proud I was of them for growing so tall. And that’s what we have to do for ourselves as well. Positivity won’t simply spring up in our souls any more than my plants would thrive without care. It’s up to us to cultivate it. 

That means something different for everyone, but there are a few things to try. You can give yourself a pep talk, delivering encouragement to yourself just as you would to a struggling friend. Or you can listen to positive music that uplifts and refreshes. Seek out trusted mentors and friends who will build you up instead of tearing you down. And of course, stay rooted in Scripture, declaring the promises of God over your life.

Is it easy at first? No, especially with discouragement and disappointment so often braided into our reflexes. But is it worth it? Yes—because death and life truly are in the power of the tongue. Every morning that summer when I saw my thriving plants outside my window, I was reminded of the transformative and healing power of life-giving words—not just for fragile seedlings, but for our own hearts and spirits as well.