In your home, on your job, about town, or in your church, do you build up others with considerate, helpful words and praise?  These words colorfully flowed from a poet’s pen.

I watched them tearing a building down

A gang of men in a busy town;

With a ho, heave ho, and a rowdy yell

They swung a beam and the side wall fell.

I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled

The kind you hire if you would build?”

He laughed and said, “Why, no indeed!

Just common laborers are all I need.

They can easily wreck in a day or two

That which takes builders years to do.”

So I said to myself as I went away,

“What part in the game of life do I play?

Am I shaping my deeds to a well-known plan,

Patiently doing the best I can,

Or am I a wrecker who walks the town.

Content with the labor of tearing down?”

May our words be more appropriate and timely and flavored with kindness to encourage others, especially our families.

The sage of Scripture wrote:  “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”  (Proverbs 16:24)

A great course available to you in the BBN Bible Institute is: Communications in the Family (#20800).  These seven lessons can help you to become a better communicator with your family and others, and they can change your life and home.