Loose Lips Sink Ships!

Have you ever given into the temptation to follow a rabbit trail?  Well, I must admit that I yielded to its enticement this morning!  I was studying along the lines of Ephesians 5:11 where we are told to “have no commerce with the works of darkness which are unfruitful, but reprove them.” (James Murdock)  As I meditated on this and the ensuing verses, I was led to take a look at the Proverb that instructs us to “Guard our heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23 God’s Word ©)  But since I couldn’t recall the exact verse, I did a word search on my bible study program using the word “guard” as my keyword.

Now stay with me here!  This is just about where the rabbit trail ensnared me.  Using my favorite God’s Word translation as my bible of choice, the search yielded 18 hits in the Wisdom books of the Old Testament.  As I perused down the list I was enticed when I came to Psalm 141:3 where it states: “O Lord, set a guard at my mouth.  Keep watch over the door of my lips.” Well, not only was I enticed… but I took the bait when I instantly thought, “Gee, I’ve experienced that many a time over the last few years!”

With a hop and a skip, I left the main path and went off on the narrow rabbit trail so I could ponder all that the Holy Spirit was trying to teach me with this powerful verse.  As I lazily plopped back into my chair, I glanced up to the ceiling but only saw the different times my inner man quickly stopped me from verbally uttering a word of despair, unbelief, self-pity or anger in a moment of weakness.  Then from out of the blue the saying advertised on wartime propaganda posters during WWII “Loose lips sinks ships” came to mind!  I had to chuckle at this thought and smile as I recognized how the good Lord has been watching over me.

It would seem that the Lord knows the importance and the inherent power of our words even more than we do!  I can now see how serious He was when He said that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” (Proverbs 18:21 KJV)  As I thought on this truth, I was drawn back to Proverbs 4:23 where we are told to guard our hearts and began to see the connection between this action and that of controlling what we say.  Then I understood the relationship between my initial path this morning that began with our loving heavenly Father’s insistence that we “have no commerce (or fellowship) with the works of darkness,” and the words that we allow to come forth from our mouths.  Hummm… maybe it wasn’t a rabbit trail after all!

I came across a website this morning called chasingrabbittrails.com whose purpose is “all about how to recognize rabbit trails, ways to avoid them and even how to use them productively.”  I guess that I learned how to use one productively today!

This whole study kind of goes hand-in-hand with our discussion of “Loose Cannons” that we talked about a few weeks back.  Only in this case, the cannon is pointed directly back to You and Me… in other words, the one speaking the words!  It is a self-inflicting wound that can have devastating results.

I am so thankful for the Lord’s intervention when I’ve wanted to say things that would not be helpful to my situation such as when I dropped a glass just before we were to sit down to dinner the other night.  It was the end of a particularly long day, I finally had everything prepared to eat and all I had to do was help my wife to the table when I grabbed a glass (from a new set I had just purchased…) off the counter in order to move it to a safer location when it slipped out of my hand, tumbled to the floor and broke into a million pieces!

As I stood there in a state of exhausted unbelief, my mind suddenly flooded with a myriad of negative words.  Now, I have never been one subject to cussing, but I was all ready to blurt out a whole bundle of words filled with discouragement, defeat and self-pity mixed with a few touches of anger when the Lord quickly commanded me to hold my tongue!  So what did I do?  I paused for a moment or two, squatted down to carefully pick up the larger pieces of jagged glass and began to praise the Lord.  In a short period of time I found that I actually began to laugh over the incident! 

The funniest part was the look on our dog’s face as she stared at me with her big brown eyes as wide as saucers.  When the glass first shattered I had told her to stay away from the mess and now she was just sitting and looking in a quandary as she couldn’t figure out what her crazy master was doing by laughing over the mess that was scattered all over the kitchen floor!

I think the enemy of our souls is just looking for opportunities to make us open up our mouths and without thinking about it, allow his defeat to enter into our lives!  By holding our words we have time to think about the consequences of our actions and then do  and say the right thing!  Interesting don’t you think?  Have you ever considered the power of your words?  Remember, the Lord tells us that they contain the very power of life and death,  of victory or failure.  Have you allowed the Lord to set a guard on your mouth?  Think about it… Have a good day.  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What am I expecting today?”