Watch Where You're Steering ... 3/27/06

James 3:4-5, 7-12, “Also a ship is very big, and it is pushed by strong winds. But a very small rudder controls that big ship, making it go wherever the pilot wants. It is the same with the tongue. It is a small part of the body, but it brags about great things… People can tame every kind of wild animal, bird, reptile, and fish, and they have tamed them, but no one can tame the tongue…We use our tongues to praise our Lord and Father, but then we curse people whom God made like Himself. Praises and curses from the same mouth! …Do good and bad water flow from the same spring? …can a fig tree make olives, or can a grapevine make figs? No! And a well full of salty water cannot give good water.”

It’s strange to think that the tongue has so much power over our lives. But the more I think about it, the more clearly I see how our daily lives, our interactions with everybody, is based on language. What we say – or don’t say – determines how others see us and how we respond to the circumstances in our lives.

It’s also a convicting reminder that our tongue and what we allow to be said should be constant; always the same. Either be a spring of life, love, and truth untainted by sour words, or allow bitterness to speak for you without the façade of misleading wisdom.

If I’m frustrated at work or in a situation at home, I’m better off to bite my tongue than to lash out with a forked tongue and poisoned lips, causing damage; so that any words of truth I speak at other times may have impact by their own weight and not diluted by the sourness of what I speak on other occasions.

Plus, harsh words leave wounds that contradict the blessed love I’ve been given, the same love I’m commanded to pass along to others. Proverbs 12:18, “Careless words stab like a sword, but wise words bring healing.” I’d rather serve God as one who has healing words rather than carelessly creating wounds with a sword that God will have to heal in that person later on.

Even more, as a Christian my entire faith is weighed and measured by what I say. If I want to bring glory to my Father and truth to a non-Christian, I should be consistent in the words I speak to that effect. James 1:26, “People who think they are religious but say things they should not say are just fooling themselves. Their ‘religion’ is worth nothing.” Ouch! Spiteful words are just one thing that creates the stereotype of the Christian Hypocrite – an image used so often as an excuse not to believe in the truth of God's word. I’d rather be completely silent before allowing a personality conflict to demonstrate to another that my “religion” is worth nothing.

My tongue directs my life. I use it to praise my Father, that is what is in my heart and what I want to share and what is spoken from my mouth should reflect that. Luke 6:45, “Good people bring good things out of the good they stored in their hearts. But evil people bring evil things out of the evil they stored in their hearts. People speak the things that are in their hearts.” My God has been working in me my entire life to change my heart. I can do my part then to prevent cavalier comments from staining His good work…