Taming the Tongue
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It has been such a long time since I have written. Not just this blog, but written anything. I stepped away from writing because it is one of the greatest sources of frustration in my life. In all the ways I love to write, that I feel compelled to write, it is also this thing that is within me that I have no idea what do to with. Why write? Who will read it? Does anyone really care? So I decided to write for me, as a record of what God is doing within my life. One day I will look back and see that I have in fact grown, my children may discover this in 30 years and see what God was doing in me. So I write for me, I write for them but mostly I will write because there is something in my spirit that is too full for me, it is too much for just me and I need to put it down or I feel that I will not be able to let it go and move on, I write because the Spirit within me compels me to.
The past few weeks have been interesting in my heart and in my mind. Our sermon series at Church (www.mercycity.com) this month is called, “Not on My Watch”, the first sermon my husband preached was all about taking 100% responsibility for your spirit, life, choices and in my case, words. I am living in a world full of words, not only the written word, but the spoken word. Some days I meet with one person, other days I sit down with 4 people and there are days we have 30 people in our living room. I am overwhelmed with the words that I speak in a day. If only my watch kept track of my steps and my words, or even better if talking burned calories! I would never need to run again!
I started to think about all the words I speak in a day. It really began because of one meeting in particular where I said a lot of things that didn’t need to be said. They weren’t bad things, they just were not necessary. They were idle words that didn’t add value to our conversation or to our lives and I felt challenged on that. Have you ever left a coffee date, a phone conversation, a meeting wondering to yourself, “why did I say that?” I have more times that I care to admit. The Spirit of God began to challenge me with the words of my husband, 100% responsibility…what if I was accountable for ever word that I spoke? Is that even possible? Here is what the Bible offers us in James 3 about taming our tongue:
"We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.
3-5 A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!
5-6 It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
7-10 This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
10-12 My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?”
Look at that, “by our speech we can ruin the world” Wow. I’d say what we say has an impact and influence in our lives and the lives of those around us. But if you check back, way at the beginning you will notice something interesting, It would take a perfect person to control their tongue. I am not a perfect person, but I do know someone who is. The only way to control our words is by LEANING IN TO PERFECTION, by knowing Jesus more intimately and relying on Him to assist us in each and every word that proceeds out of our mouths.
The reason I love this thought is because it is not something we can pray in the morning and leave it alone for the day, this looks like a moment by moment dependance on the Spirit of God. The Bible also says that His Word is living and powerful, that is the kind of life our words can have, they can be used for blessing or cursing.
You never know when your words are the very thing holding you back, destroying your life, causing you to be depressed, defeated and disappointed. What if we started to say what God was saying over our lives, our situations and our families?
Here is my challenge, today, to guard my tongue. Asking the Lord to help me to speak blessing today and to help me recognize when I am speaking negativity and death over my own life and the life of others. I wonder how different my life will look tomorrow?
