A Steadfast Tongue

The finches on my bird feeder this morning

"And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? (James 3:10-11)

           This morning, I was quite the self-contradicting paradox - feeding finches on one side of my deck and shooting at woodpeckers with my Daisy BB gun on the other. (Never fear animal-lovers, I didn't hit them - just scared them away from our chimney that they're pecking full of holes!)

            

            In the New Testament, James, son of Mary and Joseph and half-brother of Jesus, addressed the problem of the paradoxical tongue, which pours forth both blessings and cursing:

"Dear brothers and sisters...If we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way...A rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go...In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches...Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God...this is not right!" 

Word check! Beloved, today, let's consistently, resolutely, steadily, unchangingly, uniformly, invariably, unfailingly, persistently,  unswervingly, whole-heartedly speak life-giving, uplifting, edifying blessings, and STOP every offensive, down-grading, angry, sarcastic, destructive, faultfinding, condemning, hurtful syllable before it spews through our lips!

"Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips." (Psalm 141:3)