I remember as a teenager a custom we girls indulged in to see if our boyfriends “loved” us. Choosing a flower with petals, we pulled them off one at a time while chanting, “he loves me, he loves me not”. Supposedly whatever the last petal landed on was our answer.
It was a silly game, with empty words that meant nothing- discarded promptly with my teen years. But it came to mind the other day as I was thinking about ways we discern true friendship … true love … from the words we hear.
It doesn’t take much to learn that not everyone who calls us friend is really a friend. And who hasn’t discovered that even among people who “should” love us … sometimes we don’t feel loved.
As we journey through this challenge to “tame our tongues” shouldn’t one of the stops be checking out where our words are formed?
What makes some words we receive seem empty?
What makes some words we speak have no power?
Why can’t we change into truthful, loving, gentle speakers … just by the decision to do so?
LUKE 6:45
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”
And there we have it.
We can’t change the direction of the tongue without changing the direction of the heart. So as we continue on in our challenge, let’s keep bringing our hearts to the Lord, so we can have better tongues.
** Check out our VERSES tab on Tuesday and Thursday for more verses to help us along with our hearts fueling our tongues. **