Keep the Cat In

I read what I thought was a pretty funny statement week. It said, it's easy to let the cat out of the bag. It's getting it back in that is the challenge.

Let's face it, once you let the cat out of the bag there is no getting it back in. Your stuck waiting it out until the storm passes. I do think the word storm is the most appropriate for describing this. I like how Proverbs 13:3 says it, "Those who control their tongue will have a long life; opening your mouth can ruin everything." There is destruction that can come when we don't keep our tongue under control. Just think about the times you've opened your mouth to say something and you just wish you hadn't. People get hurt, lives can be ruined, trust is lost and relationships are destroyed. The sad thing is in our country there is an entire industry made to thrive on this. There are shows that just talk about the latest gossip, there are newspapers at the checkout line at the store that revolve around gossip. What is more sad is that it is a thriving industry. I wonder how many celebrity's lives have been ruined by gossip. I get it, your living in the public eye. But that doesn't give us the right to gossip. In fact in a brief search I was able to come up with 47 verses that point towards gossip as hurtful and bad. Here is one in Proverbs 11:13 "Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered." There are others that attack it more directly but I like this one because it goes after the other side. I want to be the one who is trustworthy in spirit because I keep things covered. I want to be a friend that people can trust to actually be helpful because I don't use their words against them or leak them out to anyone else. How often have you offered to be an ear to someone and I believe with the best intentions. You want to help and be there for that person. But from experience I can tell you that I would not go to a person with personal info to "talk" when they are someone who is constantly filling me in on others lives. Yes, there are people out there that just cannot seem to hold in others personal information.

Consider James 3:5-8 "Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison." Ok, so it would seem there is a reason that there are people who cannot seem to keep things to themselves. Because God describes the tongue as something that cannot be tamed. In fact this whole passages is a warning against the destructive power of our speech. I hope this is coming across clear because there is so much destruction that has been caused by what is said in social media. All we can do is allow the storm to pass at this point. The problem is we don't stop and just keep feeding the storm and it just keeps becoming more destructive.

Let's highlight one more thing there. James 3:6 quoted above tells us just how destructive our words are not so much just to others but really to ourselves. "It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." In my opinion this is the most powerful passage on our words in the whole Bible. It shows us that our words are most destructive to ourselves. That it corrupts our whole body. Nothing in our body is left untouched and in fact it goes beyond our body to effect the entire course of our lives. Have you found that you don't like the direction your life has taken? It seems to me that your tongue should be your number one suspect. The direction your life has taken is strongly influenced by the words you have spoken.

So my hope is this, (even at least for myself) that we all will learn to guard the words of my mouth. That we will think before we speak and consider our future and others. Forget about the immediate gratification from being able to "share" or "speaking our mind" and think about the consequences of opening our mouths.