Watching of the Tongue

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the words that are coming out of my mouth and off my tongue.  Watching the tongue of course doesn’t actually mean to watch your tongue in your mouth.  However, this does mean that a person should watch what they say and the words that are coming off of the tongue. I will be honest with everyone when I say that recently I have struggled a bit more with watching or really listening to the words that I say and use.  There are some times that I am more prone to swearing or saying words that are not the most appropriate.  I am wanting to work on this in all the different ways of watching a tongue.  

This is an important thing to think about because of even just how much time people spend talking.  If you are a person like me, then you really like to talk to a lot of people for the majority of the day.  I have a very fitting job in the fact that I am a teacher and get the chance to talk to students and my co-workers all day! There have been studies that have found that people, ,both men and women, speak roughly 15,000 to 16,000 words every day. That’s a lot of words, which does mean that there are a lot of words that a person should spend time thinking over.  There is, as we will also discuss, a lot of opportunity then for someone to use those 15,000 words for good or for pure evil.  

The book of James is a great book to read when wanting to read about how to watch the tongue.  One of the first verses in James that speaks of watching the words that we say is James 1:19-20 which says, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  This verse packs a lot of wisdom.  A person should be willing to listen to the other people who are talking. This is of utmost importance when there is an argument or a break in harmony that is starting to come about. This is because when we don’t listen, we often don’t understand what that person really is wanting to say.  We can misunderstand the situation and get mad at something that we really should not have been getting mad at, at all.  The other thing is listening provides a lot of wisdom.  When we spend time trying to listen and learn from other people, we grow a lot as people.  

Another verse is James 3:10 is, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”   Our mouths can do doal things.  They have the ability to lift people up and empower them.  However, it also as we have said many times has the ability to bring people down and give curses to people.  This even includes gossiping or hoping that they have terrible things done unto them.  It is a scary thing that the body part that can be so pure also has the ability to be so evil and destructive.  It almost shows that if vile words come out of a person’s mouth, then that is almost in and of itself tainting any of the good things that come from the mouth coming forward.  I try to think of it like a water spigot.  If it is clean, the water will be more likely clearer, cleaner, and more pure.  The same goes for the words that are coming out of our mouth and how maybe tarnished or made unclean it has in the past.   Of course, we do by all God’s glory have the grace of Jesus that does make our mouths clean, but this verse should still serve as a conviction as to how we use our mouths.  

The last verse that I wanted to highlight in regard to the tongue is, “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.” James 3:8-10 I love this verse.  I love this because I think it best showcases that while the tongue is a small piece of the body, it does have a lot of power.  As we have seen, the tongue has a lot of power to give pain, suffering, gossip, and curses.  However, it also has the great amount of power to send a lot of blessings to the people around us.  It also is the thing that we get to give the Lord praise with.  This praise can also set a fire throughout the entire world to love and honor the Lord.  That is amazing that again such a small body part has such amazing power.  

Even though the mouth is a very small body part and can often be forgotten about, it is an incredibly important body part.  We speak those thousands of words, and we don’t always spend time reflecting on whether or not those words were destructive or uplifting, gossiping or worshipping, speaking with hate or speaking with love.  My challenge for myself as well as for anyone who is reading this blog is to start watching those words that are coming off of your tongue.  Are they words that you are happy that God is listening to or is it words that you would rather not share with the Lord? God has blessed us with this body part.  (Thank goodness for that, because I again really love to talk!) Clearly God does have great plans for us to use with it.  I pray that we all find amazing ways to use it, even when it can be hard.