Day 3499 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 18:21 NIV

And so as it turns out it seems as though our time is torn between tongues of eternal opposition, the oddity of such a position being that the two are tied into one within these mouths often left unbridled.

We see this growing discrepancy begin shortly after the design of mankind in those first of us long ago being given two very different messages from two very different directions. The first came from He who breathed this breath of life into them and still into us. His message was simple for it was to enjoy the bounty of His blessed benevolence as proven and provided within the Garden of God called Eden with one simple juxtaposition: Just don’t take from that one tree. Simple message enough, or so now it seems.

And yet unfortunately, shortly thereafter came the second tongue which breathed not life into us but rather did as still he does and that is to seek only to steal, to kill, to destroy this opposed proposition to enjoy the gift of life within this garden of God’s goodness.

“You will not surely die.” And you see, thus was spoken the lie which speaks still through far more mouths than just that one that is still caught within an eternal jealousy as to the authority that God alone both commands and controls, demands and deserves. For He who created life by the speaking of all life to life is the only One who now holds the key to life, and the deceiver delights not in having no say in such a gravity as this gift of life that he’s sought to scourge into a curse that steals, kills, destroys life and all who were created to live it for more than what a tongue might convey.

That’s the danger warned against within this Word. Those who love it will eat of it. And while this is potentially perfect in regard to growth and hope and healing and meaning and purpose and life, so too is it perfectly problematic when our speech is turned perverse and pursues the same prize as bought by the price of that pride which blinds and binds a soul so far from home into this here in which we hear so much noise that it’s as if all of humanity is all but allergic to quiet.

Yes, I’ve long thought myself quite the outlier in that my life feels most alive when caught within the quiet of a rather solitary solution. For I’ve always been the one in the corner, back of the class, out of the limelight and far from the frontlines of fellowship and fun. Indeed, my life has long been lived within the outskirts, upon the backroads, stuck to the silent and left there without all that much to say as I feel that so much is said anymore that our words are becoming altogether worthless in that we wield them as if they’re so light and easy that it matters not their meaning.

And in that I find that I cannot understand nor comprehend how such a gift as something that can speak life as done within all of us by He who created us could then become something so expendable and over-exercised that we do now far more damage than we do deliverance.

For that is again the only two directions of our devotion to a tongue’s directing. It is either aimed at building or breaking, helping or hurting, contentment or complaining, speaking joy even when it’s raining or simply speaking doubt because we don’t think it will ever stop. And it’s this latter of all the above that we’ve all known well within this life as lived within this land so lost that most are still looking to the tongue to lead them whilst leaving their own so unbridled as to become a life all its own.

It seems as though I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time without realizing that I’ve been thinking about this. For several days now we’ve been discussing this difference of direction and devotion as designed and demanded amongst a mankind so dissolved and disintegrating that we walk a world that’s anymore more battlefield than benefit. This is found and felt within this fervor that finds most feeling our faith foolishness and thus us fools for following it with such unashamed ferocity.

For here it’s made ever clearer that our beliefs are not considered in any way all that becoming of anything better unto those who delight to remain as they’ve always been. Because the truth is that our faith is founded upon this truth upon which our beliefs are built that has become seen as only quite the burden amongst unbelievers as it speaks to the life we’ve all been given and how it’s sadly not at all the life we’ve been living. And this most disagreeable definition of that eternal disappointment is one that’s apparently considered more than deserving of disagreement and disdain.

And this is why we’re so vilified for our willingness to walk the walk behind the Way who came to speak life again into our dry bones so that we might rise from these ashes we’ve been living in, living for, living amongst, and walk again toward the better that He at first created us to be and has thus now breathed again a Way for us to become.

But the hardship is that this world hates that idea that we’ve not been alive as it seems to eyes well-past blind that we have been all this time. I mean, what else might we call this? Here in this world we have time which we spend upon things that bring about feelings and emotions that either help or hurt. We have communities and conversations that seem to move and motivate. We’ve experiences that dissolve into memories that sometimes feel more alive than our present predicaments as always never preferred for sake of their suffering.

And all of this as we’ve always known it otherwise culminates within an inescapable date with death upon which and beyond which we’ve left nothing but to apparently embrace the decay of bodies returning to the dust from which they came.

That is the overall consensus it would seem, but is that truly the biggest and best and brightest belief of what life is and where it’s lived? Just something in this world, by this world, for this world? Are we to then believe only that life is bound to this world and thus any and every belief in something different merely a matter of make believe?

For that is the message that it seems most here are all but desperate to share. And we see this inside our every experience where their doubt confronts our hope. And this is indeed a meeting that’s happened more than once for all of us. It happens all the time anymore. You want to hear someone laugh? Just tell them your dreams. Want to start an argument? Tell them your beliefs. Want to lose a friend, end a relationship, dissolve an opportunity that just isn’t benefiting your life?

Tell them that you can’t wait to leave this world as you believe that beyond it awaits a home where life is finally lived as it always should have been.

See, this world finds this sense of enjoyment if not elation in this every opportunity to make someone else look the fool as such seems to absolve them of their own foolishness, at least for a moment. And considering how each of us are so bound down by doubt and disaster, those moments of passing relief at another’s expense are so comforting that they’re considered almost expensive, too priceless to pass up. And thus we’ve become a people giving over tongues unbridled to the breaking down of whomever we might so that we might feel better about our not getting better or doing better ourselves.

It’s truly an amazing undertaking when you step back from your part in it and just reconsider it all. We each have the power to speak, to use language to converse and convey, to express ourselves inside something so limitless as tongues that don’t grow tired and mouths that have no problem continuing to move. But the question should always be what are we moving toward behind these mouths that don’t stop speaking? What are we accomplishing with all this effort given unto our giving our input about anything and everyone?

Yes, what is it that we’re sowing, knowing that we shall reap whatever we plant?

See, the reality that we seem to have forgotten behind our discounting the power of speech is that everything we say is in fact a message that has maybe a bit more meaning that we might imagine. Everything we say to someone else is a seed that just might make just enough sense for them to soak it up, let it in, let it then begin to become their share of our opinion, our idea, our direction. And yet, again, we seem to live as if everything we say, while obviously something we consider worth saying, somehow isn’t really worth all that much.

It’s quite the confusion in all honesty.

For how can our words mean enough to us to always give us this urgency to say something but yet carry such little worth that we needn’t worry about what we say? How can we take something that can send a message that gives someone else hope and use the same tools, the same time, the same opportunity to tear someone down? How can we speak truth with the same mouth that doesn’t mind a lie every now and then, of the white variety obviously and only when needed of course? Indeed, how can we ever truly think a lie is needed if not for the fact that this world so dead in sin has spoken that idea so much that we now believe it ourselves?

That’s the power of the tongue!

It almost effortlessly plants ideas that we hope others become interested in sharing all so that we needn’t bear them alone. And I think that’s right where we need to begin considering what it is that we’re sharing. For again, everything we say is in fact a message that carries a meaning so magnificent that it might inspire someone to do something better, or at the same time could implore them to give up something altogether.

And what I fear is that we’ve become so desensitized to the danger done by the tongue that we don’t stop to consider what we’re saying nor what those words might be doing inside those to whom they’re spoken.

We’re just lost inside a sea of talking heads, each of us so filled with opinion and pride that we can’t seem to bear the burden of keeping our thoughts inside. And so we speak. We share. We scream sometimes. But again, what? What are we doing with our words? Where are we pointing those that might actually be listening? Have we indeed forgotten that some do still listen? We are, fair enough, caught within a world so endlessly distracted that most of those around only vaguely hear that we’re saying something.

But what about those random few who actually, actively listen to what we feel the need to say?

Maybe best question of all for today is where is that need coming from? I think that’s maybe the best way to consider all this. For the Bible tells us that the mouth speaks what the heart is filled with. “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45

And so what do our words say about what’s filled our hearts? Do they speak of a heart filled with hope? Do they levy love to those who listen? Do they carry compassion to those with whom we’re communicating? Are we speaking life to those around us as if we love them the way the Way loves us, preferring to die rather than lie? For Christ came to speak the truth that is the life, for He in fact is all the above. The Way, the Truth, the Life.

Who then are we as defined by the words we speak?

Because the fact of the matter is that we’ve all grown eternally too fond of the fruit of our tongues. We love to hear ourselves speak, or at least most of us do, not me personally as again I’ve always found more peace and purpose within the quiet in which I only say something if I feel it actually needs to be heard. But the vast majority of people love to talk and this is so utterly undeniable anymore thanks to such things as cell phones and social media comment sections. Indeed, everyone has something to say.

What are we saying and what do those words say about us when measured by the impact they may or may not have upon another?

For the reality in which we walk is that we’re in a world that again loves the tongue for its ability to speak endlessly and thus find a person always feeling as if they’re seen, heard, known, as if they then matter. Our tongues and our words make us feel like we matter. But do our words, our tongues matter for the good or for the other? Because again, the tongue bears the fruit of both life and death, a fact seen inside the Father who spoke us to life and too the enemy who spoke that first lie that caused us all to die in what we now call sin.

Are we speaking life or death, truth or lie, hope or just something random in order to feel as if we’re heard?

Friends, I supposed my point is that this world will always have a lot to say, and we might at times feel the same. But we need to perhaps remember all those times we’ve heard something that hurt, listened to some lie that left us lost, embraced a message that had only the worst kind of meaning. Because only in doing so can we begin to understand that we’ve done the same to someone else. We’ve all spoken words not worth being spoken. We’ve all said things without thinking about the direction they may have pointed someone in.

All of us have learned only to discount language into nothing more than just noise that we usually use only to fill our fear of the quiet in which our thoughts wait.

But we can’t so disqualify our opportunity to be a part of the solution now that we’ve been made aware of the problem. Because make no mistake, as we’ve been talking here lately, this world will remain filled with those who speak death, who speak doubt, who speak these words that inspire others only to give up hope and stop trying for what they believe. I think it’s thus on us to speak something better, to use our words to aim at something higher.

Yes, I believe that it’s our duty to discharge our discussions in such a way that dismantles doubt and destroys disbelief. For all of us are here for a reason, and our words are either a wonderful tool to help us accomplish something good or just a weapon with which we wield the wrath of whatever wrongs we’ve let inside our hearts from which all our words come.

Just know that in a world where words are everywhere, that doesn’t mean that they don’t matter. If anything it only means that maybe ours should be so different from most that they only matter more.

Friends, let us make sure they matter for the good by using them right. For that is such an amazing opportunity that we cannot anymore agree to take it so lightly as those many who use their words as if they mean nothing. Especially when we’ve all felt for ourselves both the life words can bring but also the death they tend to mean.

So watch your fruit carefully my friends, for we’re surrounded by people eating up everything we say. And too, be careful just what you listen to as it might be coming from a heart not filled with the same kind of hope that we’re all fighting not to lose within a world that’s only trying to take it away.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold