And She Shall Be Called "Woman" (The Tongue - Day One)

Few things are as universal to us as women like speech or more specifically the enjoyment of the “gift of gab”. Thanks to modern day technology, between the telephone, texting, tweeting, email and Facebook we can successfully be involved in constant conversation from the time our feet hit the floor in the morning until our heads hit the pillow at night! We just love to talk about anything, everything and nothing at all! My eight year old proves this genetically predisposed fact every morning. From the time her feet hit the floor she is talking. There are times when she will be talking while I am cooking dinner and I will drift off into thought only to come back to and find her STILL talking. As long as I offer a sufficient “uh-huh” every few minutes, and sometimes when I don’t, she is content to carry on. It used to be when she was little and took baths that she would ask Kraig to come “sit on the potty” to talk with her while she played in the tub because she didn’t want to be alone! It became a running joke in our house that anytime someone wanted to talk we would say, “Come sit on the potty!” But no one had to teach her this! She was only 3 or 4, just old enough to put sentences together and she wanted to share her thoughts and feelings, her WORDS, with somebody!

From a very young age we wait for babies to say their first words. We even look like speech pathologists mouthing “Mama” and “Dada” to our newborns in hopes they will be verbal over-achievers. Then, it isn’t long before we wish that there was a button we could push that would take “Mama” off the vocabulary list for at least a few hours, especially around age 2 and 3 and 4...11. But truthfully, we long to be able to have our children and others around us express what they are thinking and feeling. Perhaps this is why we get so frustrated at men for not talking because we thrive on communication. So, what do we do with all of this? Our words. When to speak, what to say, how much to say, how to say it. There is wisdom in learning to use our tongues for good and to make the most of every word we say.

It is appropriate for us to see where the first word was spoken and its context. If you go all the way back to Genesis 1:3 we have record of the very first words spoken, “And God SAID, ‘Let there be light.’” So, we see that God was the one who spoke the first words and that His words were very powerful. So powerful in fact that He created the entire universe with the spoken word! This brings us to our first point about words: words are powerful! As the creature, our words are not equal in power with God’s words however, being made in the image of God, we are privileged with the ability to communicate. Initially, our words were ultimately to praise God and communicate with other people but very soon after Genesis 1:3 things started to go awry!

In Genesis 3 God creates Adam and Eve and places them in the garden. Up to this point in scripture, God has spoken to Adam to INSTRUCT him about his responsibilities in the garden and also to WARN him about about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, in Genesis 3:1 the serpent enters the picture and he SPEAKS to entice Eve and tempt her to sin. Then, she SPEAKS back and it is all over from there! Satan initiated the conversation and she joined in. How different would this encounter have been if there had been no words exchanged? Although we will never know the answer to that question we can clearly see the power of the spoken word. Wow, how this teaches us! Three very important points to take with us from this passage:
1 - We must realize the importance of every conversation, indeed every word. There are some people we don’t need to be having conversations with...calling out “Debbie Downer, Negative Nelly and Scoffing ??” (couldn’t think of a name that goes with that but you get the point). There are some topics we don’t need to be talking about. We have to be wise when choosing the person we go to about certain subjects. Your best friend may not be the best person to talk to about marital issues if she jumps on the bandwagon of “husband bashing” with you! In this case, Eve should have ended the conversation the minute Satan attempted to confuse what God had said.
2 - We must realize the importance of not always being involved in every conversation. Often, we feel that it is necessary to put in our “two cents”. There is a sense of validation that we get from having been heard. The Lord has really dealt with me on this because Proverbs 10:19 says, “where there is a multitude of words, sin is unavoidable. Simply put, the more you say, the more likely you are to say something you shouldn’t! We don’t always have to be heard. Case in point, Eve didn’t have to entertain the conversation, she could have remained silent choosing not to engage the serpent which ultimately led to her vulnerability. It opened up her mind to his scheming.
3 - We must realize the importance of choosing our words carefully and not using them in order to persuade others to sin. There is something inherent in us as women that gives us the ability to persuade others to do what we want them to do. The term coined for this would be “feminine wiles”. Need a mental picture? Think Delilah or Scarlett O’hara! Got it? There is a certain sway that we as women can have over men in general. It usually starts with a little girl and her Daddy. I have had a front row seat to the tugging of my daughter at her Daddy’s heartstrings. She could get just about anything she wanted from him with a word and sometimes it wouldn’t even take that much! From there, we start to see our powers of persuasion over young adolescent boys and it isn’t long before we are as silver-tongued as any snake charmer! Girls, this is flattery and it is sin! The word is very clear about flattery and the use of words for selfish gain. “A flattering mouth works ruin” (Prov. 26:28). We must guard ourselves against using our mouths to persuade people against their will! Eve persuaded her husband, enticed him to sin without a word! She was the instigator and look at the consequences. Thousands of years later we are still reeling from the results of her sin.

As we close out day one of our look at taming the tongue, let’s begin to ask the Lord to make us aware of our words. When we speak, how often we speak, what we say, to whom do we say it etc; If we were limited in what we could say how would it affect our conversations during the day? Let’s commit to bring our tongues under submission of the Holy Spirit and ask Him to be Lord over our mouths to use them for blessing instead of cursing, good instead of evil and building up instead of tearing down.