Wednesday, January 18, 2017

CHOOSE ANTONYMS

When reading Philippians 2:14, Do all things without grumbling or disputing, Pastor Cole introduced the term, captious as a synonym for the word grumbling, when used as an adjective. A grumbling person. A "Crankshaft" of sorts. 
Captious. Fault finding. Petty. Hard to please.
I don't want to be a captious Christian. Captious folks can't get close to God.
I don't want that descriptor to be applied to me.

So....I looked up antonyms for it. Instead I was overwhelmed with synonyms---28 to be exact!
Cantankerous, carping, hypercritical, nagging, testy......to name a few!

I had to search hard for some antonyms, which in this case were "positives." I don't want it to be that way in my life. I don't want folks to have to really search to find some positive descriptors based on my attitude and word choices.

Today I choose antonyms of captious....but I can only find 6. 
Commendatory, complimentary, encouraging, flattering, laudatory and praising.
Of the 6, commendatory, complimentary, flattering and laudatory seemed more "works" based to me.
That narrowed my "choices" to encouraging and praising. I focus my praising on the Lord.

Therefore, I choose encouraging even though I know that means changing some "words" for the ones whom I love most. More loving and encouraging words than training and disciplining words.

May i continually choose to display antonyms of captious in my life!

No comments:

Post a Comment