Mind to Mouth

Yes, friends, Beware the tongue.
Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work.
Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it
wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was
perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.
A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the
hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your
mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!
It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of
your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud
on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from
the pit of hell.
This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The
tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same
tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the
same mouth!
My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next,
does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do
they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are
you? (James 3:1-12)