Watch Your Mouth!

A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. (‭James‬ ‭3‬:‭5-6‬ MSG)

I understand from personal experience the power of the spoken word and how damaging it can be to relationships. This isn't a new problem nor is it only an issue for me. The passage of Scripture above demonstrates the devastating potential of our words and cautions us in our choices. The good news is that we can choose the opposite of the verses above as well.

• A carefully placed, correct word can put out the fire of conflict.
• We can strengthen & build up the world and our relationships
• The right word can create beautiful, unified harmonies while eliminating chaos
• We can restore a person's reputation and protect their character
• At the first sign of impending fire we can quickly put it out with words of peace, unconditional love, and reconciliation

We have always had the power to build up or destroy with our words. Let's carefully choose which list of results we want to describe our speech.