Well, it is our last day together on the tongue. For any of you who missed my post on Saturday about my own “incident”, I am going to recount the whole sordid thing again. I figure this will teach the entire lesson on what our speech SHOULD NOT be. Nothing like learning it before you teach it. Here goes:
I’m going to embarassingly (I know, not a real word!) tell on myself. Just last week I commented on a blog post from a blog that I visit regularly. I will not incur any more shame by telling you which blog it was however, I got REALLY fired up about what was being said because it seemed to be mocking the word of God. Now, I am definitely a passionate person and therefore it doesn’t take much to get me fired up but I am fiercely defensive of God’s word! (Lesson number one: God’s word needs no defense, it speaks for itself!) Anyway, I posted a comment in great haste, violating the command for a timely response AND it was pretty nasty! I crossed over from using my words to edify into slander and complete condemnation - in print, mind you! Yes, out there with my name on it for the WHOLE world to see. Well, the person that responded to my comment did so with such grace and civility that I looked like even more of a complete fool than before (if that was possible!). To make things worse, they give other readers the ability to “like” or “dislike” each comment and I was racking up the “dislikes” big time. I was actively looking for a hole to crawl into, quickly! It felt like something etched into the bathroom stall in high school for all the generations to come! I was convicted, embarrassed, mortified and Kraig even agreed, “this one was a doozy!” I had just finished up my neat and tidy five-day devotional study on the tongue...yes, I said the tongue and I had fallen flat on my face in an effort to retain one iota of what I had studied!!
I quickly hit the floor in repentance and then asked God to give me some very appropriate words to admit my sin, to the whole blog world! Humble pie is not so tasty to the flesh but it is soothing to the soul. Why? Because it was the right thing to do! I hemmed and hawed over that one comment for three days! I beat myself up, swore off the spoken and written word forever and was ready to take down my blog. Kraig was excited at the possibilities...but then he said, “Honey, this is a lesson. You are learning for those you are teaching and just because you are teaching doesn’t mean you are above stumbling...Amen and ah...Amen! Oh, and by the way, next time, sleep on it or at least let someone else read it before you click ‘reply.’” Okay, I got it, believe me I GOT IT! I had just taught myself this entire series of lessons in one fell swoop! So, lest you think there will be a time when words won’t be an issue, think again!
I guess the point I want to drive home is this: When we start to stray from the facts and start to attack someone’s character we have crossed the line into sin. If I had stayed with the facts at hand, presented scripture and let it speak for itself I would have saved myself alot of trouble. It says in Ephesians 4:31-32a, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and slander be put away from you with all malice and be KIND one to another!” I was not kind and I had slandered with anger the character of a person I did not know who is made in the image of God. I was wrong! Lesson painfully learned! So, I want you to know that I have learned these lessons in writing them and very recently, in living them. And lastly, I want to add, I finally feel that my blog name is totally correct, I am “growing in grace” and it is DEFINITELY one inch at a time!!!
Well, there you have it! So, I will quickly list out the things that our speech should be free from and give you several references to wrap up. Here goes, our speech should be free from: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice, flattery, course jesting and anything that is unspiritual, unfitting, unkind, insensitive, unwholesome, idle, degrading, untruthful (lies), unloving and deceitful (Eph. 4:29-31; Col. 4:6; Eph 5:15; Prov. 25:1; John 12:49-50). This list is by no means exhaustive and you can certainly find many great, pithy sayings about the tongue in the book of Proverbs. Nearly every chapter has at least one reference to the tongue and most have multiple scriptures about the mouth.
I hope you have enjoyed the study. I know at times it has been long but I hope you have learned something. I hope that you will walk away from this with a greater understanding of what our talk should look like as women of God. Communicating is so important to us, even genetically predetermined for those of us with XX chromosomes. Let’s purpose in our hearts to be wise with our words and affect our world and the people around us for good when we speak! I know if I’m going to ever have to eat my words, I want them to taste good going down, don’t you?
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