Day Sixty-five

“Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, ‘I was only joking!’” (Prov. 26:18–19)

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 26:18–19; James 3:2–6

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Whoever first said that—lied. Most people are able to forget broken bones sooner than scalding words.

We can each remember being hurt by a careless or hurtful word. Worse yet, we can remember hurting someone else by something we said. We may have been instantly sorry. We may not have even meant what we said. Or perhaps we did, but we certainly didn’t mean for the person we spoke about to hear it.

Our mouths get away from us like runaway trains—with similar results. One minute we’re the center of attention; we’re blowing and going. The next thing you know, the targeted person learns what we said. Like the writer of Proverbs 26, we sometimes claim, “I was only joking!” Maybe. But the person hurt never forgets he or she was the punch line.

God’s Word says that the one who can tame her tongue is the one able to bridle the whole body. In fact, if we read the James passage carefully, we can safely deduce that a tamed tongue is one of the chief characteristics of a mature Christian. Why is it that this oral cavern of ours is one of the last frontiers we allow Christ to conquer?

Left outside the Spirit’s control, the tongue is dangerous. Words rub together like sticks. A spark bursts into flame; and, as others catch on, the flame quickly escalates to forest fire status. A destructive game of one-upmanship commences as we fan one another’s flames. Someone will surely get burned. Wounds don’t heal easily—or quickly—and often scars result.

In the last several days, I’ve noted that three different people in unrelated conversations repeated words someone said to them years ago. In each case the words still sting. That’s the problem with fires. New growth is a long time coming.

Sadly, Christians don’t differ much from the rest of the world in matters of the tongue. James 3:9 says, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.” Many times we criticize the preacher before we even get to our cars on Sunday after the worship service.

The Word of God says the tongue is a tattletale. “For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). In other words, our speech reveals our heart.

Let’s allow God to get to the heart of the matter and to heal us of our verbal pyromania. These are hard words, but a fiery tongue is not easily quenched.

Today, allow God to use His Word like a bucket of water.