The tongue is a valuable piece of equipment, but only if deployed from the launchpad of wisdom. If deployed anyhow, the tongue always proves to be a chemical weapon that destroys not only its intended victims but its owner as well.
So never discount the potential consequences of the fruits of your tongue.
Consider this powerful statement: “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:12, NIV).
Look at this too: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of [his] life on fire …” (James 3 Verse 6, NIV).
The Bible contains lots of useful teaching on the subject.
For a start, let’s focus on the following instructive verse: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak” (James 1:19, NIV).
Many people live with painful regrets for the words that they recklessly uttered. The words have brought such people nothing but misery, discomfort, and embarrassment. The people now wish they had never uttered the words. Sadly, they cannot take back their words; what has been said remains said.
This situation arose because the people spoke or responded in haste. They should have waited for, maybe, just a second before opening their mouths!
Unfortunately, outside Parliament it’s not easy to eat back one’s words; what has been said cannot be ‘unsaid’, and an apology might not work either. If only these people had listened to James!
James teaches us to be quick to listen but slow to speak. But some people are by choice slow to listen and quick to speak, resulting in debris all over the place!
Let me give you a punching statement: “Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 29:20, NIV). Never belittle these words; they proceeded from the mouth of a very wise man.
Applying his wisdom, the man undertook a study on how people were using their tongues, and from the results that he got, he concluded that a person who speaks in haste is worse than a fool.
A fool has more hope in life than a man who speaks in haste. Just think about it.
Imagine this; you might not consider yourself a fool, but if you speak in haste then you have less hope than a fool. If this is the case, why would you still insist on being quick to speak? Train yourself to listen and to think before you speak; you should never permit verbal floods to burst the banks of your mouth!
As I continued to read my Bible, I came across a statement that got me seriously thinking. Here goes: “No man can tame the tongue” (James 3:8, NIV).
We surely need the enabling power of the Holy Spirit in this regard. We need to surrender this deadly gadget to its Maker!
We might try to tame the tongue on our own, but we always come short of the real deal. Several people have vowed never to speak in a certain manner, only to catch themselves before sunset doing exactly that. Such people often touch their lips and exclaim, “Poor me, I have just said it!” So, no man can tame the tongue; what we need is to surrender this gadget to the One who is able to tame it for us.
We have established that a person who speaks in haste is more hopeless than a fool. Let us now consider the position of the one who always uses their tongue wisely.
Listen to this: “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man able to keep his whole body in check” (James 3:2, NIV). Praise God! This is an important statement. Do you identify with it?
The verse states that if you can control your tongue, then you can control the other organs of your body. But if you deploy your tongue in a reckless manner, then there is a high likelihood that you also deploy the remainder of your organs in similar fashion! This never ends well.
The other lesson that I got from the Bible is that the tongue has an unparalleled ability to create specific situations. Depending on how you deploy it, the tongue could be an architect of either order or chaos in your life.
The way you speak makes you either a construction worker or a member of the demolition team. One sentence can bring sparkling sunshine across the world; another can send heat waves of sorrow and suffering to the entire human race.
I have learnt a thing or two from what God did when He created the heavens and the earth; the first being an appreciation of the power of creation embedded in our tongues and the second being the need for each one of us to use the tongue only in a manner that results in the common good.
If you read the story of creation in Genesis Chapter 1, you will note that God used specific words to create the universe that He had first captured in His imagination. For example, God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Gen. 1:3, NIV).
If you continue to read the Chapter, you’ll see statements like, “God said … and it was so,” meaning whatever God commanded to come into existence came into existence. We do so daily, sometimes in an absent-minded kind of way.
Each day, some people use their tongues to create evil; some deploy their tongues to create wonders. We need to be very careful about what we say, because our words produce products of their kind!
The most touching part about the story of creation is this: “And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen: 1:31). I am humbled. This is a great challenge for you and me.
Here is what happened in this case: First, God captured in his mind the kind of picture that He intended to produce. After that, He spoke certain words to bring forth the desires of His heart. Second, God looked at what He had produced and saw that it was not just good, but very good. Truly inspirational!
Consider for a moment the kind of words that you used yesterday. What did they produce? Was the product of such words good or bad? If it was good, was it very good?
This is the lesson: You should never start by speaking; rather, you should start by listening and establishing what you intend to create with the words you are about to utter. You then go on to use words to bring about your desire.
But in doing so, you need to always learn from God. In the story of creation told earlier, you should have noted that God decided to create something good and used relevant words to bring it to life. After creating it, He evaluated it and found it to be very good. So, God was satisfied with the product of His tongue.
Never be satisfied by something that on evaluation turns out to be very bad!
I encourage you to think about these issues always. Keep training your tongue in the Lord. Do not give up if at the first, second, and third attempts you don’t succeed; surely someday you will become a perfect person who can control first his tongue, then the rest of his/her organs.
What a joy it would be for just one more person to take dominion over their tongue in the Lord!
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