In the Jewish creation narrative, God spoke the heavens and the earth into existence. In the Biblical Proverbs, words are said to have the power of life and death. In Christianity, Jesus is introduced as the Word that God sent to manifest his power on the earth. Ancient cultures keenly understood the connection between words and the events that took place in the material world. The words of the Creator were of the utmost important. Kings, generals, and commoners sought out divine oracles by which to govern their lives. They labored in temples, churches, mosques, and prayer rooms expressly to persuade God to utter a word in their favor. It was also said that man was created in the image of the Creator. The belief was widespread that a man’s destiny would in some measure be determined by his own words.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:3-4

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Proverbs 18:21

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1-2

The truth is that your life and my life up until this point are the manifestation of words that we have spoken and words that have been spoken over us by others. The seed of every word is a thought. A dumb person may go an entire lifetime without speaking a syllable, but the power of words operates in his own mind. And not all words have equal power. A man may think 70,000 thoughts in a day. But only the thoughts he believes take up root in his mind, reproduce themselves, and have a powerful effect on his material reality. This is something that Jesus Christ understood.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mark 11:24

The thoughts we believe are the source of everything else that happens in our life. They are the prism through which we interpret reality. In every moment, the brain is flooded with far more information than it can possibly make sense of. The brain has what’s called a reticular activating system, whose job is to filter information from the environment by only holding on to information that confirms existing beliefs. This is why someone who believes, “I am successful,” constantly finds evidence to support their belief in the same manner as someone who believes, “I am not good enough.” There is a famous sequence that captures the powerful impact thoughts (and the beliefs that empower them) have on our lives.

Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.

Experts estimate that human beings think between 60-80,000 thoughts and speak between 10-25,000 words in day. If words are the building blocks of life, it follows that every human being is constantly creating their life. And they are doing so at an incredibly prolific rate. We often don’t see it this way because our brains are on auto-pilot and many of our thoughts are repetitive. The bottom line is that the key to all self-improvement is changing the way we think.

Abracadabra. We’ve all heard this word before. It’s what magician’s say when they perform a trick. It’s from Aramaic and means “I create as I speak.” Abracadabra is the main takeaway of this article. And the main takeaway of this website. Remember it if you remember nothing else.