Proverbs 15:4 The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.
If I had to list the 5 biggest issues I have to correct the kids on, speech would be on the list. Annalise, at only 2, has a favorite catch-phrase; it's "You go to JAIL!" said in a very loud, unfriendly tone. To tone it down, she will repeat it sweetly, "You go to jail." But being so little, she is a pretty good illustration of how speech just overflows from the heart.
It really is amazing how powerful speech is - and there are other Proverbs that address it, I just happened to be reading this one around the same time I was talking with the kids about James 3...
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire...
And naturally I found myself telling them how saying mean things can "burn" someone else's feelings like a fire can burn our hands. But we read the passage in James more than once and suddenly the middle of verse 6 jumped out at me:
It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire
I was very surprised because I always skimmed over these words assuming the fire burned the recipient, but here it's the speaker that is burned! I guess for me the bottom line is this - speech has power when you use it to help or hinder someone else, but it also brings to life the hidden places of our hearts and we must use caution when expressing it.
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