Communication
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Voices kept calling through snowy fog, "Hey, Buddy, c'mon. We've gotta keep going…."
He wanted to follow the familiar voices into the pain-free mist. He nearly did…. But another voice, crying through the pain, drew his attention. This voice, of one he loved more than anyone else, wouldn't let him go after his buddies. "PLEASE, don't leave me! Please stay; I love you so much. I can't lose you!"
Later this wounded soldier would tell his story. It would have been so easy to let go and join his troops that had gone on ahead. But, that other voice, even though it pulled him back into the pain, was more than he could resist. He had to stay behind with his beloved young wife. But, he admitted, if that voice had been silent, if she hadn't kept pulling him back into visible life, in spite of all its pain, he would have forgotten everything else and just slipped away with his friends into the invisible mist of eternity.
Her words, her desperate cry, I'm sure she never regretted them.
In Proverbs 18:21, we read about the tongue. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue…." The above account certainly bears witness to that power, for life, or for death. But, that description sounds as if the tongue, like a light switch, can be turned on or off. The book of James is rather notorious for its commentary on the tongue. "From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so." "And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members…no human being can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison." "So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!"
Over a hundred references to the tongue, throughout the Bible, give a listing of adjectives on the side of death, such as lying, deceitful, perverse, backbiting, a deadly arrow. I'm sure we're all familiar with that side of the tongue, and most certainly each of us can admit we said something at least once in an unguarded moment that we regret.
Thankfully, we also find references to righteousness in relation to the tongue. Which prompts us to think: what makes the difference? If "no human being can tame the tongue," how do we find the life-side of the tongue?
Here's a clue to help solve the mystery (from Psalm 45) "my tongue is the pen of a ready writer." This metaphor is so acute. Do we thank the pen that wrote a love letter to us? Do we blame the pen when we receive a hurtful message? The same pen could write both, but it would be silly to accuse the pen. So, of course there's no way to tame the pen, either. It is the source making use of the pen that is the culprit.
It shouldn't be difficult to discover the tongue's source. "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." Ah, so! The tongue only reveals what we have stored up in our heart. Now we're getting somewhere!
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." –1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Okay, I know what my heart needs. So, how do I get this treasure? Do I just sit and wait for the God who is Love to give it to me? After all, we read that "we love God because He first loved us."
21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” –Luke 12:21
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. –Luke 12:34
Ah, there's the answer: "Jesus, priceless Treasure, Source of purest pleasure, truest Friend to me…."
The soldier's young wife had such a heart full of love, so powerfully revealed by the words on her tongue, that it made the difference between life and death for her beloved. As we walk with Jesus, growing in His love for us and for those around us, our tongues, too, will be used of Him in a similar way, calling the dying world into abundant life with our precious Redeemer.
--Copyright 2017 by Edy T Johnson--
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