Taming the tongue
Recently a friend took me shooting. No animals were involved, just targets. My very first shot drilled a neat hole in the bullseye. I was elated, but everything went downhill from there. Sometimes I even missed the target totally. It seems that my initial success was a fluke. But I was impressed by the hyper-diligence to safety that was practised at the range. Knowing that these were lethal weapons, the pistols were handled with extreme care.
I wish that we would practise the same caution with our tongues. In his sad lament, David emphasises just how dangerous an untamed tongue can be - it plots destruction, is like a sharpened razor, and is deceitful. As we’ll see later, in the tragic case of Doeg, people actually lost their lives. Every day, reputations are tarnished, rumours are passed on, confidence is shredded, and trouble is stirred - and all because we fail to engage our brains and search our hearts before we open our mouths.
Confession time again. As someone who loves both spoken and written words, I admit that I can be too quick on the draw with a comment that can cut and wound. Hopefully God has given me a skill to use words creatively - but that skill can be used to hurtful effect if I’m not careful. And scripture makes it clear that taming the tongue is difficult. Let’s be thoughtful about what we say today, and use words to bless and not bruise.