Kevin Mattatall: Your words can be apples of gold

The Bible says in the book of James that the most unruly part of who you are is your tongue.

Have you ever noticed that your tongue can have a mind of its own?

You can be telling your tongue not to say something and your ears hear your tongue saying it.

Someone said, “if you didn’t mean it, you wouldn’t have said it.” Not true, we can say things to win an argument or to shut someone down or to prove our point, or to wound someone who wounded us. We should say what we mean without using mean words to say it.

Have you ever said something that you wish you hadn’t said? Have you ever said something to get the last word in? Just let me give you a piece of my mind. People that say that are out of their mind.

The trouble with words is there is no eraser for them once we say them. One of my Bible teachers said, “you can think what you like but be very careful what you say.”

With the world we’re living in we discover that there’s no eraser for text words or photos either. With words we can bring peace in the midst of turmoil or war in the midst of peace. We can provoke and stir up trouble or speak and bring a calmness to a troubled soul.

Our words can cut like a sharp knife or our words can bind up the cut and heal the broken-hearted. The work is not just in knowing the power of the tongue but it’s in harnessing that power so we have the wisdom to control it.

1 Peter 3:10 “He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit.”

Proverbs 21:23 “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.”

My mother had her own way of handling my wrong words — with soap in my mouth. The soap freshened my breath but did nothing to sweeten my sour words.

The question is not do you have the right to say something but is it right what you have to say? Are your words going to calm the person down or add fuel to the fire? There are times when silence is the golden answer and times when it is required that you stand up and give an answer with words.

Proverbs 25:11 “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”

It would be great to have an app on the phone that you could ask if what you want to say is OK to say. The truth is life is a learning curve that we need to pray and ask the Lord for help in our times of hurting others with our misguided and misspoken words.

We have all said things wrong but I want you to give yourself a break and forgive yourself and then forgive those who have spoken wrongly to you. You can’t fix or erase the mistakes that you made yesterday but you can decide today to control what you say.

I told one couple to put the past in the past and start a compliment account. Say things to each other every day that uplift and encourage the other person. They have been investing in their compliment account and God is restoring their marriage.

You may have said some things that were wrong and you may have wrecked some things in your past but I want you to focus on your future and start by saying the right things today.

My confidence in you is high that you can improve your future and bring hope, health and happiness back into your world.

Find a good church to attend where the word of the Lord and the work of the people go hand in hand to make our community a better place. God bless you all.

Kevin Mattatall is the pastor of the Cape Breton Christian Fellowship Church. For comment or prayer email: [email protected].