Pay Closer Attention to Your Tongue

Some days I wish someone would invent a human muzzle.

An invisible one, of course—triggered only by negative emotions, ones with the intention of producing a negative outpouring of words.

Ideally, it would non-awkwardly stop gossip, slander or discouraging words from flowing out of my mouth the instant before I opened it.

I don’t know about you.

But I find myself saying horrible things about people that perhaps I disagree with, or believe things opposite of me, or maybe have slip-ups in character. They are comments that if repeated in their presence would ruin all credibility I ever built as a “loving” human.

And while we might not see the word vomit coming, we sure feel it.

We aren’t kids.

We have been talking for years and years.

We know the feeling of our heart on one shoulder saying: don’t do it, remember what you said about her last week and how you felt when you saw her? And our mouth on the other saying: Get it out! It feels great—and added bonus: you will feel better about yourself after, too!

A common human experience– it’s as if our mouth is detached from our body, like a runaway kid with a hobo stick and sack, going down its own path while our heart is walking down another.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

Recently, for the thousandth time, I stumbled across this scripture in James 3: 9-11 and decided to adamantly commit to obeying it:

“With it [our tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?”

I’m not going to be perfect.

But I’m taking this seriously starting with these three practices. Join me:

1. Number our days:

To put this in perspective, think about the potential power of our tongues to shift the spiritual climate in life, multiplied by the amount of days we have left. The average lifespan in the United States is currently 27,375 days. To get your own approximate, take your age and multiply by 365, then, subtract from 27,375 days. Let’s seize each day as an opportunity to speak words of life and see the beauty that emerges.

2. Nominate our tongues:

As our feature of focus. In our image-driven society, our body, our hair, our style, or even the length of our eyelashes are often our features of obsession. Let’s instead obsess over our tongue, and shaping and taming it into something beautiful.

3. Set a guard:

It’s as simple as praying every morning: Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! (Psalm 141:3) Simply knowing you can’t do it on your own and asking for help is key.

Today I had the chance to complain.

I was tempted to talk about how someone just doesn’t seem to ever “get it.” But I chose to employ the invisible muzzle by keeping these three things in mind. I’m hoping it’s my best ally thus far to travel my 15,695 (approximate) days I have left.

Pay Closer Attention to Your Tongue is a post from: Storyline Blog