Jen’s Gem: Speak Victory Over Your Life

Lately, I have been reading a lot of Bible stories about how God and His Son Jesus spoke. Each story reminds me of the power of our words – to harm or to heal, to create or to tear down. One story in particular has stuck with me. It’s in Mark 11:12-25 where Jesus speaks to a fig tree. Click here to read the story.
Here’s the short of it. Jesus was hungry and came across a fig tree. As He approached it, He noticed it had no fruit. He spoke to the tree and said it would never bear fruit again. His disciples expected the tree to fall over and die before Jesus’ words even left His mouth, but it didn’t.

The next day as they walked by the tree, they saw it was dead. But it wasn’t just that a few leaves had withered or a branch or two had fallen off. In other words, it wasn’t in the process of dying, it was dead from its roots.
Here’s what caught my attention about this story. Jesus did not wish for the fig tree to die. He didn’t talk about the issue with His disciples. He didn’t contemplate it for days on end, losing sleep over it. Jesus spoke to the root of the problem and He declared the situation resolved.
As I was contemplating this message today, I thought about how God created the world just with His words. Everything from “Let there be light” to “Let there be mankind” was declared into existence. He saw a situation that He wanted to change and He spoke the words to make it happen.
He didn’t sit on His throne and say, “Wow. I sure wish there was an earth. I wish there was light. Boy, wouldn’t it be great if there were humans?” He also didn’t call His Son Jesus over to discuss the situation ad nauseum.
“Son, what do you think I should do? I want an earth and a sun and a moon, but I’m just not sure how I should go about it.” Can you just imagine Jesus’ facial expression hearing His Father speak this way?
This is the image that appeared in my head this morning. While it did make me chuckle a bit to imagine God being indecisive and calling upon His peeps to help Him make a decision, clearly this would never happen because when God speaks, stuff happens.
You may be thinking, well of course stuff happens when God speaks. It’s God speaking! That won’t happen for me. I’m here to tell you that it will. Maybe not in one day, or one month, but it will happen. However, here’s why it may not be happening.
We spend our time wishing for things to be different. We talk about our problems with everyone, day after day. We say things like, “that’ll never happen.” Think about a challenge you are going through. Have you done any of these? Have you spoken words of defeat? My guess is you have. I know I have. I also know I’m done with it.
I’m done letting the mountains in my life crush me or my kids for that matter because they have many more years in front of them than I do, and I want them to have a life of victory, not defeat. So what do we do about these mountains?
In Mark 11:23, Jesus tells us:
“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.”
Notice this verse does not say to whine about our mountains. It doesn’t say to think about them 24/7. It also doesn’t say to talk to everyone we know about them. It says simply to tell our mountains (aka our illnesses, our financial troubles, our family issues) where to go. It tells us that if we have faith and truly believe what we are saying, it will happen.
Jesus knew what would happen as soon as He spoke to that fig tree. He didn’t even have to pass by it again the next day to know that His words accomplished what He said. We need to be the same way.
I’d like to encourage you to take a different tack this week to the inevitable mountains that will come your way. Instead of a “here we go again” mindset, speak against it. Tell that mountain where to go. The same power that brought our universe into existence, that caused the fig tree to die from its roots, lives in you. You have the power to speak victory. So speak it!
Then, when trouble comes a callin’ (and it will), you can stand firm and say: “Who do you think you’re talking to?”