“ Taming the Tongue”

BIBLE READING: James 3

            Albert Einstein was asked his formula for success. "If A is success, I should say the formula is A = X + Y + Z, X being work and Y being play." "And what is Z?" "Keeping your mouth shut."  Isn’t is so true that our lives would be much better off if we all learned how to just keep our mouths shut.  In our Bible’s there are just certain chapters that we simply just know what they are about when we hear it.  For instance, Psalm 23 is classified as the “The Lord is my Shepherd”, Matthew 5 is labeled “The Beatitudes” and James 3 is labeled as “Taming the Tongue”.  James provides us with almost an entire chapter dedicated to teaching us the dangers and the consequences of us not controlling our speech.  Our tongues are so small in comparison to the rest of our bodies yet have more power than all our body parts combined.  We can either build someone up by the way we speak, or we can brutally tear them down simply with our words.  In the words of James “…the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts great things.” (James 3.5) We can either use it as a weapon to destroy and inflict pain, or we can use it as a tool to build up and encourage; the choice is ours.  Therefore, we need to be careful how we use our tongue.   Einstein was right, sometimes the key to having success is learning how to just keep our mouths shut.