Tag: Mouth

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Hunting peace.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

For the Scriptures say, “If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it. The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil. ‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬-‭12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Peter offers amazing results for those of us who want the good life. In a world of decisions that have immediate consequences, this is GOLD. Peter writes if we want a life filled with love and see good days… what is required? Simple – just “pauó,” restrain our tongue! And something even more difficult – stop our mouth from trash-talking “dolos,” deceit. Wow. Was Mom right? Even Thumper, from the Bambi movie knows this, “If you can’t say somethin’ nice.., don’t say nothin’ at all.”

The Apostles all write about this in one form or another. Paul in Colossians 4:6, Ephesians 4:29, James in James 3:6 – they all speak of controlling the little fire-starter organ, known as our tongue. Apparently our mouth is the gateway to the hateway!

Peter’s godly, Spirit-filled advice is to help us control our mouths. It starts by controlling what we think about, even starting with what we look at. He writes, “zéteó,” seek or search for peace. Peace, “eiréné,” is the Hebrew equivalent to Shalom. Peter follows that up with not just seeking it, but when we find this peace we should, “diṓkō,” pursue it or aggressively chase after it! Search for peace, targeting it, then hunt it down and make it ours.

This godly peace must do some deep work inside our hearts, allowing our heart to see the world, our friends and our circumstances differently. Can a peace perspective have that kind of dramatic effect on my mouth? Writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, directing thoughts and quill-strokes on parchment, I believe this is direct wisdom from God! When I feel my heart is angsty and out of sync with God, I can easily see my hot, viperous words flying out of my mouth. But if I hunt down peace and allow the Spirit of God to settle my soul and de-escalate my rabid rise of evil thoughts, maybe – just maybe, I can put the kabash ( a real Hebrew word) on my wild tongue.

Prayer

Dad,
I try really hard to guard my words. They seem to fly out of my mouth faster than I can put a stop to it. It’s flat out embarrassing to think the battle started in my heart. It is sad to think that my heart was seeking, and desperately searching for anything other than peace. My heart was looking for trouble, looking for a reason to validate my feelings and emotions that actually came out of some poor attitude or pity-party I was having. I am so sorry. Help me with my thoughts! Help me with the posture of my heart. Remind me to hunt down peace rather than something awful and evil. Thank you for your supernatural peace that will eclipse my soul, helping me think right and therefore speak better words, godly words. Amen.

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Brain Ruts.

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble.” Proverbs‬ ‭21:23‬ ‭NLT‬‬

This one’s for me in the most unusual way. I am an over-sharer. I talk to much on a principle of connection and understanding those around me. Somewhere in there, I am trying to get and keep people connected. And, more than that, get people to know the real person underneath the shallow conversations we so often have. Sounds noble right? That’s the upside! The downside is I share the good and the shady. It’s the shady that drifts into gossip. I love input and interaction. I love a good dialog about deep things, hard questions and unsolvable mysteries. I promise it wears thin on my wife and adult children. I’m concerned that I’m developing the ruts so common in folks brains as they… (cough, cough) get older.

A rut is a well worn track that runs in the brain, an automatic neural response with words and ideas easily triggered by something we see or hear. I hear a friend talk about EV’s (electric vehicles) vs Oil/gas and my brain just starts lightning up, firing the well worn neutral path that looks like a bright-lit runway on a dark, moonless night. These ruts have deep memories and feel like a instant-ready playlist that auto starts and won’t stop until the last song is played. Plus, the conversational rut is happy to be running on auto, because our brains are the laziest organ in the human body.

As we age our brains are more than happy to set aside a few nodes and electrical bandwidth to keep us busy so it doesn’t overextend energy to learn NEW things. What does this have to do with this verse?

There is something incredibly addictive to enjoy connecting our rut-thoughts to our mouth! It’s like a powerful feedback loop. Our thoughts drift into these ruts, our mouth gladly picks up the ball and starts running a familiar script and we hear ourselves reinforcing those looped thoughts. Why do you think we tend to tell the same jokes as we age? Why do we “always” follow up with the same predictable responses? Ruts, Ruts, Ruts, that’s why.

Gossip and our wagging tongues are the worse use and example of these looped neural paths! I end up training my brain to hear juicy morsels of information about someone else and I store it in that precious “short-term” memory slot for quick access. Then, when I’m around friends, instead of listening to learn from or to encourage one another, my brain is listening for trigger words to allow me to jump to the remarkable recall of my playlist and start the track.

The wisdom of this proverb tells us to shut our mouths, effectively to stop the cycle and disrupt the process of starting the playlist. Having no verbal loop to make my rutted brain happy, it will finally release that rut, deleting the playlist. No, it’s not easy and no it does not happen quickly. But it does work. It is humorous that Proverbs says, “watch your tongue,” which is impossible while in a conversation, but we can bridle it – stopping it from prattling on and on.

Prayer

Dad,
Our mouths in direct connection to our thoughts is a wild combination! I know Proverbs says elsewhere that life and death is in the power of the tongue. And James describes it as the rudder of our life. It is so very powerful to build up but also tear down. Help me to keep my mouth healthy or help me keep my mouth shut.