Our Home on the Range and Encouraging Words

Do you know what the official state song of Kansas is? It’s Home on the Range. Since, I did not grow up in the Sunflower State, this was news to me. (I don’t know what the official state song of my home state (Michigan) is—given the fact the auto industry is having really bad times these days, it might be “Turn out the lights the party’s over.”) But in Kansas our song is Home on the Range. Good thing you are reading this little prose and not listening, because right now if you were sitting in the hallowed offices of Central Church you would hear a wretched noise emanating from my office. It’s far from David Cook and his American Idol fame and fashion, as I bellowed out for no one in particular to hear:

Home, home on the range.
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

I suppose my home is technically on the range, (Is Olathe on the range?), but I have yet to see a single deer or antelope play. A few bunnies and squirrels may be around, but there are definitely no deer or antelope in my neighborhood. On occasion, I have heard a few discouraging words (especially as it relates to gas prices) and the skies today are more than a little cloudy. In fact, it’s pouring down liquid sunshine as I type out these words.

I guess the song is a little inaccurate. There’s no deer and antelope; plenty of discouraging words; and the weather man says the skies will be cloudy all day. I can’t do anything about the non-playing and non-existent deer and the antelope. And controlling the weather is a little out of my pay grade too, but I can do something about “discouraging words.”

I remember seeing a Far Side cartoon years ago where a deer and antelope were discussing the ugliness of a certain buffalo to which another dear (or maybe it was an antelope) overheard them and said, “I think I just heard a discouraging word.”

If you listen in on many of the conversations at your work place and home and sometimes even church, like that eavesdropping antelope (or was it a deer?) you might also conclude: “I think I just heard a discouraging word.” It’s easy to fall prey to saying discouraging words. It’s easy to complain. It’s easy to find something to complain about, but why? What good does it accomplish? Rather than being a person that finds and focuses on the negative, I want to be a user of encouraging words and attempt to be positive in all I say. Solomon once said:

The words of the godly are like sterling silver;
The heart of a fool is worthless.
The words of the godly encourage many,
But fools are destroyed by their lack of common sense.
(Proverbs 10:20-21)

Why not have encouraging and sterling silver words, whether your home is on the range or not? Who knows—maybe your use of positive encouraging words might even chase the grey clouds away and deer and the antelope might start playing again. Positive encouraging words make a big difference!