In the hands of God

Wise words will win you a good meal, but treacherous people have an appetite for violence. Those who control their tongue will have a long life; opening your mouth can ruin everything. (Proverbs 13:2-3)

Our words actually produce a harvest of goodness and grace, or they create one of bitter weeds and hurtful briars. A weed chokes out all the good growth around it. A briar pricks at whatever it contacts, causing unbearable irritation. What do our words produce? 

Good people enjoy the positive results of their words because they don't create chaos, discord, or mistrust in those who hear their words. Words are meant to be heard - once spoken, they cannot be unheard. We might want to 'take back' what we have said, but a seed sown is not able to be retrieved.

The control of the tongue is more than learning a 'cultured' manner of speech. It is being able to size up a situation, read the moment, hear the Holy Spirit urging, and then speak when the moment and conditions are right. The words we choose may not always be our own. It is quite possible that God will speak through us, but we must be available to him.

The words that are not spoken are equally as important. Knowing the moment and conditions, being able to size up the situation at hand - these are somewhat of an 'artform'. We might know what needs to be said, but the moment may be incorrect. Why? The words would inflame the situation, the hearer is not ready to listen, or the silence we keep is intended to be what the other needs to 'hear'.

The vile, evil words of one who does not follow Christ have an impact that brings strife, jealousy, anger, and sometimes even more discomfort that imagined possible. The words of the wise may seem to be few, but their impact has the ability to be greater than any rhetoric of the unwise. I have said it before, but it bears 'repeating' - words matter. Choose them wisely. Speak them in the right timing. Hold them back when silence will speak the 'loudest'. You never know what your words may accomplish when left in the hands of God. Just sayin!