Today’s post comes from Sarah Van Beveren. Sarah is a thirty something mom to three little girls with boundless energy, wife to a suit-wearing husband who keeps the coffee brewing, and the best kind of legalist – one in recovery and rocked by grace. She’s a reader, researcher, and introvert who hails from the Great White North. She loves to play with words when she can find the time. She blogs at sarahvanbeveren.com, or you can follow her on Twitter here. I’m happy that she has joined our team.

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So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,and set on fire by hell. James 3:5-6

I know too well the feeling of a tongue set on fire. One of the gifts that God has given me is the ability to think quickly, and with that often comes the ability to speak quickly. I confess that I more often abuse, rather than use, this gifting. One of the struggles of the critically thinking mind is to keep it open, to recognize the pit of cynicism that is calling you. It isn’t easy to recognize when you’ve stepped on that path, to see that your analyses have started to consistently put you in the right and others in the wrong.

I was called out for my tongue earlier this year. Up until that point I had been aware of my propensity towards knowing it all, but didn’t realize the damage it was causing. Finding fault with everything had become so natural to me, I had come to believe it was part of my God-given personality. I had forgotten how familiar sin can feel. I found myself getting worked up about anything and everyone, the topic not as important as my desire to argue. I was oblivious to the influence this had on those around me and to the pride that drove it. Friends found my negativity taxing, they saw my discernment as complaint.

Eventually I was approached out of concern. I was not walking in a manner worthy of the Lord. My cynicism was a barrier to my relationships and made it difficult to love and appreciate those around me. It stripped me of my desire to serve and be involved, as I looked down on every program and event. And in the aftermath of that encounter I learned this: our words carry weight and not one is spoken in neutrality. For every word we use to exact influence, we will be held accountable. Because of this we should tremble before God when we release them.

What comes out of the mouth was first birthed in the heart, and we have the choice to put it to death right then. Cynicism skews discernment, and the more arrogant we become the harder it will be to recognize the beast we’ve unleashed. Filtering out God’s voice from the noise of our mind requires prayer, asking, hearing. I’ll argue that it is difficult to utter sanctified words when they’re being ushered out of our mouths at full-tilt. We cannot tame this, only call upon the One who already has.

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. James 3:9-10

I have been on both the giving and receiving end of this kind of destruction. Speech can flow so freely from our mouths and speak ill of fellow brothers and sisters. Some of us are more prone to strong opinions and more inclined to voice those opinions. Sometimes we believe God has called us to do so, and he may have.

But if on our way we have torn down another or reduced them to the sum of their theological leanings, we have stepped off the path that gives life. Worse still, if we have projected our hostility towards said leanings onto their character itself, we are wavering over the edge of the pit. And in that place only our sinful motives reside. We would do well to tether our tongues to wisdom and truth.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18