Spiritual Health - Blessings and Curses

What is a curse?  What does the Bible say about curses?  As we are seeking to build a new life how do Blessing and Curses factor in?

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast, Working on Amazing. This is a podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I use that word rebuild because we're specifically designed for women who feel like they're starting over right there in the middle of their life. A few things could lead you to that point. Really common one is divorce.

Sometimes, it's the death of a spouse. But for whatever reason, there in the middle of your life, all your plans for the future have gone up in smoke, and it feels like you're starting over. If that's you, first of all, let me say, I'm truly sorry.

I know what that feels like, and it does not feel good. However, there is so much hope. You are in the right place.

Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. So, let's get down to business.

Today's episode. If you'll remember, I said there were five areas I focused on when I wanted to rebuild my life. I focused on my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health, and growth and goals.

So, today's episode is going to fall under the category of spiritual health. And when I tell you the name of it, just bear with me and hear me out, okay? I just need you to hear me through on this one.

Because today, we're going to talk about blessings and curses. And I know that sounds really odd. We don't use the term curses in today's society very often.

If we talk about a curse, we tend to think of witches and cauldrons, maybe Halloween, but it's something that we really don't believe in. It's on the fringe of society. It's not a realistic thing in our daily life.

We kind of roll our eyes and move on. I get that. But what if I were to tell you there's a different way to look at curses, and they're more prevalent in your life than you realize?

And that's what I want to talk about today. Okay? So I have a scripture that I want to read, that this whole blessings and curses is based on, it's in Deuteronomy.

But let me just set it up for you just a little bit to give you the full backdrop of when this is being said, the full context. So you kind of get a feel for it. So Moses is the one speaking.

And if you'll remember, Moses is the one that led the Israelites out of slavery. So they were in Egypt in bondage, right? Moses came and said to the Pharaoh, let my people go, right?

And what did Pharaoh say? He said, no. And there were these plagues.

You've read about them in the Bible stories. And the final plague was the death of the first born son. And that's where we get Passover, because the death angel passed over the Israelites, because they followed what God said.

Remember all these stories, right? So Moses led them out of captivity, led them out of slavery, and he was leading them to a promised land, right?

God had promised them something, that they would become a nation, that they were their own people, and they would have land and be a great nation. So Moses leads them out of slavery, leads them out of bondage and captivity. But then what happens?

They wander in the desert for 40 years. That's a really long time. And you can say a lot of reasons why they wondered and biblical scholars and theologians who know way more than me, can theorize on that for a while.

But where we get to in our story, in our scripture, is at the end of that 40 year journey. They're on the edge of the promised land. Okay?

So they've wandered for 40 years. They were in slavery, they were in bondage, but they left that bondage, which was great, only just to wander in the desert and not have a home and not have a land.

So they've been through a lot as a group, as a people, right? And Moses has been their leader this whole time. He's the one that went on the mountain and spoke with God.

He got the tablets, the Ten Commandments. Moses is the one who's led them. They got water out of the rock.

Moses has been their leader in every sense. He's led them spiritually in every way. This is the direction we go.

All these things, Moses has been their leader. But the point we get to where Moses is speaking, this particular scripture that I'm getting ready to read, they're at the door of the Promised Land.

They're getting ready to cross over, and Moses isn't going to go with them. Moses does not cross over to the Promised Land. And that's a whole other story.

But this is, he gathers the people together, all the Israelites, and he speaks to them. And this is like the last time, like he's passing the baton to Joshua. And it's great, right?

But he gets to speak to these people he's led, and they've gone through so much together, coming out of slavery, coming out of bondage and captivity. But then they wandered in the desert for 40 years, so long.

So you've got a whole new generation of people that have only been raised in the desert, who didn't know slavery may be in bondage, but they haven't known freedom, and they haven't known the Promised Land.

So they've been through this huge emotional journey together. And Moses is passing the baton. This is his last big speech to them as a group.

And this is what he says. He says a lot of things, so I'm not going over all of it. But in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19, starting with verse 19, this is what he says.

This day, I call the heavens and the earth as witness to you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.

Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him.

For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give you, your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So God had promised the promise later. That's where they've been heading this whole time.

And they're on the edge of it, right there, getting ready to cross in. Moses has given his kind of last impassioned speech to them. He's not going with them.

They're carrying on. And on the edge, on the precipice of this thing they've wanted for forever. I mean, you're talking back to Abraham, like, generations and generations and generations back.

God promised Abraham that they would be a nation. This is before Abraham even had one child. God promised him he would be a nation, and he would be as countless as the stars.

So there has been this promise of a promised land and a nation and a group that would become great, right? So they've longed for this. They've grown up knowing this and hearing the stories.

And now, we're at this moment where they're on the precipice. Like, it just must have felt monumental.

We're getting ready to cross over and claim this land that God has told us and told our ancestors that we would have, that we would become this great nation. They're on the edge of this monumental thing, right? I mean, it's been building.

And Moses says to them, I set before you today life and death, blessings and curses. Oh yeah, by the way, choose life. I mean, does that not strike you as odd?

What if I were to tell you, I set before you a glass of cool water and a glass of poison. You have to pick one. And oh yeah, by the way, I would choose the water.

I mean, if I hear life and death, I'm going to choose life, right? Wouldn't you think that? If I set before you water and poison, you would just intuitively think, well, everybody would choose water, and nobody's going to drink poison.

But Moses understood human nature. How often do we curse ourselves? How often have you made a mistake?

And you're like, dang it, I'm such an idiot, I'll never get it right. I always do this. I'm just such an idiot.

Did you think it's speaking like that to yourself? Speaking a curse over yourself? The Israelites, as they were going through the desert, struggled with a lot of complaining.

They complained constantly. We were better off as slaves in Egypt. This is horrible.

We don't have a place. They were very nomadic, obviously, for 40 years. And they struggled because they were in the desert.

Do we ever make our complaints into curses? You will never get this right. You're always going to struggle.

So maybe we speak that way to ourselves. Is there a possibility that you've spoken that way or thought about that way to others in your life? They're never going to do this.

They're never going to get it, never. I've told them time and time again, and it's just not going to happen. No, they're an idiot.

Is that speaking curses over other people? Has somebody cut you off in traffic? What's your nature reaction to curse?

So what if speaking this negative declarations is a curse? And God says, I set before you blessings and curses, life and death. Choose life.

Maybe without even realizing it. Instinctively, almost reactively, we choose curses. And what if we have to make the conscious choice to choose blessings?

Curses are going to spring up. It's a reaction. When we're hurt, when we're offended, it just comes out of us naturally.

How dare you? You'll never get it right. I'll never figure this out.

And why I think it's so important to talk about it in this context, in the context of rebuilding an amazing life, is because I see the parallels. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. You are going through a dark night of the soul.

I don't know how long it is. Hopefully, it has not been 40 years, but it feels like it's never going to end. And you have a promise.

People will tell you when you're going through a very difficult season, joy comes in the morning. Sorrow may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning. There are brighter days ahead.

You'll hear all these things. People have probably told them to you. They told them to me.

And you know that, and you hear that. It's hard to truly believe it when you're in a dark night of the soul. And I can imagine the Israelites struggled to believe that they had their promised land on the other side waiting for them.

They were caught up in the struggle of living day in and day out, right? And sometimes we are in that struggle, because we're, our heart is broken. We are just in a really dark night of the soul, right?

And possibly, maybe you're on the precipice of your promised land. Maybe it's similar to the way the Israelites were. And there were a lot of things that they had to do to get to the point where they were.

But the last thing Moses told them, as he's, you know, handing on the torch, turning over leadership, I said before you today, life and death, blessings and curses, choose life, right before they're entering into their promised land, leaving that

whole 40 years of wandering in the desert and getting ready to take hold of the promise God had for them. This is what he chose to say. And maybe we have been struggling with the dark night and soul, and maybe that brighter day is in front of us.

Maybe one of the things that is keeping us bound to wandering in an emotional desert, is this whole idea of blessings and curses. And curses are for the desert, and blessings are for the promised land.

And if you want to go to the promised land, you got to lead the curses in the desert. And it's really hard to do. I'm not saying this is easy.

I'm going to give you an example from my life, a story just to kind of put it in context of reality, and a situational setting. So, probably 20 years ago, I was a young mother, and we made a move.

And I think I've mentioned this before, it was not a happy move. Some moves are really happy moves. You got a new job, yay, and you're moving to that.

Or you got a really cool new house, and you're excited to move in to your new place. Sometimes there are really good reasons for a move, and it's exciting. This was probably the exact opposite.

We had to sell our nice, fun house that I was so happy with. We moved into a smaller house. We were moving to a place I didn't want to move to, and the circumstances surrounding this move were very happy and very negative.

So we're moving in to a city away from my family and friends, a city where I didn't really know anybody. And we're unpacking boxes and getting things set up. You know what it's like, like in the middle of the move.

That's where we are. And we're getting the Internet set up. And because of the situation that had led to where we were, which was a not happy place, through counseling and different things, we had agreed that the Internet would be password protected.

Now, this is before smartphones. You're talking about the early 2000s. So you didn't have a smartphone that automatically just connected to Wi-Fi or data.

The only Internet in the house was through a computer. And so we decided there would be a password for it, and I would be the keeper of the password. And maybe that would help with some of the issues that had led us to where we were.

So there are boxes everywhere. We're setting things up. I'm trying to get the kids room set up, the kitchen set up.

You feel me, right? And I get handed the laptop, and it's on the screen to set the password for the Internet.

And in that moment, I just had this realization, this thought, that if he were to hack the password, if he were to learn my password and get on without my knowledge, it could be the straw that truly breaks the camel's back, and it would destroy our

family and our marriage and everything. And so, with that thought, my next thought was my password has to be a message to him.

So if he were to put it in, if he were to figure out what it was and he were to put it in, at least I would have one last message.

I would get one last word in before he went down a path that could destroy our family and our finances and everything else. So for whatever reason, I decided in that moment that my password had to be a message. That's ridiculous.

It never happened that way. Nothing ever came of it. But in my mind, if you track with me in my head, this is where I was at.

Okay? So the laptop's in front of me, the cursor's flashing to enter a password. And my first thought, I'm not proud of.

It was a cuss word. I typed it in. I felt bad about that.

Delete, delete, delete. I deleted it. I backed it out.

And I thought, you're a loser. I didn't feel good about that either. Delete, delete, delete.

And I just struggled with this, right? I finally set the laptop down and got up and had to walk away. I just had to clear my head.

I was in a really negative space. I had worked myself up. This password had to be a message to him.

And I just needed time to think. And I had heard somebody talk about blessings and curses. And I was just so convicted.

Every password I had thought about was a curse. And I thought, how are you supposed to enter into a new life, and a new place, and a new season in your life, if all you're going to do is curse? You can't speak curses, you have to speak blessings.

And I don't know if you've ever been in that place where you know what's right, but your heart just isn't quite on board yet. So I knew that I couldn't use curses as my password. And I knew I had to choose blessings.

And it was such a difficult choice to make, because I really wanted to get in the last word. I really wanted to let him know what I thought.

But I sat back down at the laptop, and I was just emotional enough, and I was trying to do the right thing, but I could not do it eloquently. I could not do the Irish blessing, may the road rise to me too. All I could type in was be blessed.

And that was my password. I made the right choice, but I was hanging on by my fingertips. Like it was not eloquent, it wasn't beautiful.

My curses were quite eloquent, I will have you know. But all I could do was choose blessings. That was it.

That was all that I could do at that moment. But I chose blessings. And let me tell you the results of that.

Well in that moment, I was so caught up with what if he hacked my password, which he never did. What if he finds it out and gets online without me knowing, then this will be my message to him. You know, that was where my head was.

None of that happened. But what did happen was I typed in that password probably ten times a day, every day for two years, three years, every day, every day, multiple times a day, because it would time out and I'd have to type it back in.

Be blessed, be blessed, be blessed. What happened every time I had to type that password in? I reminded myself, I've chosen blessings over curses.

I am choosing blessings. On bad days, when I was so angry and I had to type in be blessed, I am choosing blessings over curses. On good days, on every day.

My now ex-husband did not know what my password was. It was years later that I told that story. Every day, I was reminded, I am choosing blessings over curses.

And I'll be real with you. It did not change my circumstances in that moment. It didn't save my marriage.

We ultimately got divorced. What it did change was my heart. It changed me.

It kept me soft and pliable. It made a difference in me. And I shudder to think how much it would have changed the trajectory of my life and my heart had I used one of those first passwords that I typed in.

And every day, I reaffirmed to myself the curses. What if I would have said that every day? You're a loser.

F you, whatever it is. What if I said that over and over every day? But instead, every day, I spoke blessings.

It changed the trajectory of my heart, of my life, of my spirit. And I, without a doubt, know that some of the blessings I'm walking in today, those were the seeds that were planted back then. I know it.

It didn't change immediately, but it helped protect my heart. And as we move in life, and especially when I began to move into a new season and did go through my divorce, it was so easy.

Without even thinking about it, without even giving it a conscious thought, I would speak curses over my ex-husband. I would speak curses over myself for being so stupid and making bad choices. I would speak curses.

It's just a reaction. We've got to stop the reaction. It's okay to be angry.

It's okay to be frustrated. But we need to guard our tongue and be careful with what we speak. We need to guard the voice in our head and be careful what we say to ourselves.

I said before you today, life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life. Every day, every moment, things happen, and we can react to them.

And oftentimes we do. But today, I'm encouraging you. Let's be conscientious in our reaction.

Let's not just react out of anger and frustration. And it can be so easy to do when you're in the dark season. Like, I get it.

And you've got a whole culture and a whole society that's going to high-five you. Yeah, you tell him. Don't you dare take that.

You're going to have people that will high-five you when you curse. And you speak curses over somebody else. You see it on social media.

It happens all the time. Somebody says something negative, and everybody, you know, chimes in. That's right.

You tell them. But that's not what God has called us to do. God has called us to speak pleasantly.

And that's so hard because it's counter to that reaction. When we are hurt, when we've been offended, when we are wounded, our natural reaction is to speak curses. It just is.

And being conscientious of it, and stopping ourselves, saying, no, I'm going to speak blessings over this situation. I'm going to speak life. And remember, God said, the blessings of the Lord are without repentance.

That means that there's no regret to the blessings of the Lord. God is not going to bless something and then go, oops, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

So I can pray blessings over somebody and know that God is going to take care of the how, how the blessing works out.

Like, let's say you're on the way somewhere in the car, and you get held up at a red light, and it's frustrating because you didn't want to get, you wanted to get there sooner, you didn't want to have to stop.

But maybe what you didn't know is being held up prevented you from being in an accident. That hold up would be the blessing of the Lord, right?

That is a blessing because it may have taken you two minutes, but it preserves so much more than two minutes a time, right? And that was a blessing.

And sometimes blessings comes in ways we don't see or understand, but God knows, God knows what the blessings are. God sorts it out. I can speak blessings even over my enemies.

I speak blessings over my ex-husband. I do constantly because God sorts them out. He knows how the blessings work out.

And as the father prospers, so do the children. So if my ex-husband prospers, so does his children. And those are my children, and I care deeply about them.

I can speak blessings over everyone in my life, and I know that God will sort it out. The problem is when we get upset, the problem is when we get offended, the problem is when we're hurt, and we lash out.

And sometimes we do it in our head, sometimes we do it to ourselves. We speak curses over ourselves. You are such a clutch, you're never going to not fall.

You're never, I personally, I'll tell you what I, my problem is, I'm missing a couple of fingers, FYI, I only have eight, I'm missing a thumb and index finger.

And I struggle chopping things in the kitchen because it's slippery, the generally vegetables, once you peel them, are slippery.

And just holding the vegetable steady and chopping it, I just, I have more cuts on my hands, and I have burns on my arms from taking things in and out, and I feel like a klutz, and I can really berate myself over that, and kind of curse myself about

how klutzy I can be in the kitchen. God would never speak that over me. God would speak blessings over me.

So in big things and little things, in the big life things, that is my ex-husband who I am so angry at, and the little things like cutting vegetables in the kitchen, we have to speak blessings. It's a lesson I have to constantly remind myself of.

Day in, day out. It was such a cool thing when it was my password. I didn't realize how every day I would be reminded.

I am choosing blessings, not curses. Every day, I was reminded of that. And now, I have to find other ways to remind myself how I need to choose blessings, because if I don't remind myself constantly, I'm going to fall back into that reaction mode.

I'm going to fall back in to doing it without even thinking about it. And sometimes, I say something negative, and I catch myself. And if that's you, if you say something negative, and you catch yourself, high five, good job.

You're becoming conscientious, yay. You're figuring it out. You're starting to learn.

That's great if you catch yourself. No, I don't mean that I will never learn. God said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and He is going to help me.

He creates wisdom. To all those who ask, I walk in the wisdom and faith of the Lord, and just start speaking blessings over yourself. You can backtrack.

You can mess up. You can say the curse, and then you can catch yourself and repent of that, and say, no, that's not what I meant. What I want to say is, and you can say that with other people, even when somebody cuts you off.

And I don't know why I can be a kind of aggravated driver, but I can.

And when somebody is driving five miles and 15, it was 15, but the road is like a 55 mile an hour road, and this guy is driving 15 miles an hour, and I can't get around from behind him and pass him.

And my knee-jerk reaction is to say very ugly things, and I have to stop and say, no, I don't know what's going on in this person's life. Maybe they really don't want to go home because they're going to have to go home alone.

I don't know what their life looks like. God, please bless that person. That is counter to what our knee-jerk reaction is.

That is counter to what human nature is. But I'm here to tell you, if you want to leave the emotional desert and walk into the land that God has promised you, that land flowing with milk and honey, I don't know what it will look like for you.

It looks different for all of us, but there are brighter days ahead. Curses can't go with you to the promised land. You got to leave the curses in the desert.

That's just the way it is. I said before you today, blessings and curses, life and death. And by the way, choose life.

Right there on the precipice, from the desert to the promised land, the last thing spoken. And it resonates so strongly with rebuilding a life, the life you're building, the amazing, beautiful life that won't be destroyed with a puff.

That life has got to be built on blessings, and there can't be room for curses. You got to leave those in the desert. So that's our spiritual Health episode for today.

How will you keep the reminder of choosing blessings in front of you? I said it as a password, but you can write it on your mirror, and look at it every day in the bathroom.

You can change your screen protector on your phone, the wallpaper on your phone. What will you do? You probably have a way more creative idea than either of those.

So look me up. I'm working on Amazing on Facebook, at workingonamazing.com. Drop me a line.

Let's start a conversation. Tell me how you are going to keep that in front of you. Keep that reminder because it's really easy to forget, right?

So how will you remind yourself? How do you remind yourself of important things? I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye.