Mar 15 - Today from Proverbs 15 we look at verses 2 & 28
"The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, the mouth of the fool gushes folly. The heart of the righteous weighs its answers, the mouth of the wicked gushes evil."
Do you know many 'gushers'? It seems there is a mechanism missing between their brain and their mouth. It appears that one important tenet of wisdom is "Think before you speak." For a few this is somewhat of a natural characteristic. For most it is a learned discipline. For too many it is a discipline never learned. I guess I shouldn't be too critical, looking back I used to be quite the 'gusher' myself. I used to have a reputation as being a 'smart aleck. There is an old adage that goes, ‘Nobody likes a smart aleck.’ I guess I didn’t believe it when I was young and foolish. But I see the wisdom of it now.
By God's grace I have pretty much gotten my gusher under control, but every once in awhile the 'living sacrifice' of self crawls off the altar and the gusher quickly opens up. My flesh goes for the 'laugh' at another's expense. God have mercy. My flesh goes for the 'cut' to bring someone down to size. God have mercy. My flesh goes for the 'manipulation' to move someone from there to here. God have mercy.
Each day we must come to the throne anew and offer ourselves as a living sacrifice and seek God's wisdom and righteousness. And each day we have the wonderful opportunity to come and receive mercy - it is new every morning.
One way the Proverbs are to be used is as a mirror - to check out how we really look. Looking in that mirror again today, I see the potential for a gusher right where my mouth is. There is a valve to control that gusher; it is called 'think'. Weigh those words before you let them loose in the world. Are they going to instruct, bless and edify? Or are they going to humiliate, cut and manipulate? Another old adage goes, ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’ People might guess that your silence in a given situation is the better portion of wisdom. Don’t open your mouth and prove them wrong. Proverb 17:28 says, "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent."
Think before you speak.
Since Nov 08
About Me
- Ken
- While mentor-ing a couple of young men late in the year 2001 , I told them that if they agreed to read a chapter of Proverbs each week-day as a part of their devotions, I would choose one verse from the chapter and share a meditation by email. They agreed. I continued to write the meditations at my desk in my home for the next two and a half years. They began to forward them to their friends and I received requests from those friends to be placed on the email list. My personal email bundle was to about eighty people. Many of those people forwarded them to friends all over the country – and some over the world. Only the Lord knows how extensive the writings traveled. I am not a professional writer, and each meditation was spun off in a relatively short period of time during my own personal devotions in the morning. In April of 2004 I assembled 366 of the meditations into a calendar year. As I now bring up the Proverb of the Day to send on to my friends, I am surprised at how fresh each of them is to my own heart – and often how they speak to me in a completely different way than when I first wrote them. . . . . Ken Sweers
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