Silence Really Is Golden…
Ecclesiastes 5:1-3 Amplified Bible (AMP)
1KEEP YOUR foot [give your mind to what you are doing] when you go [as Jacob to sacred Bethel] to the house of God. For to draw near to hear and obey is better than to give the sacrifice of fools [carelessly, irreverently] too ignorant to know that they are doing evil. 2Be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter a word before God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few. 3For a dream comes with much business and painful effort, and a fool's voice with many words.
There is very few times these days that I can be pushed into a verbal joust or giving in to saying something I really do not mean, or being mean just because. Some years back that could not be said. People that knew me as a teen, would happily tell you I needed to get in the last word and that my words were sharp and unforgiving. My husband who was a friend from high school, happily teases me about the mouth that was on me as a teenager, it was one that took no prisoners and merciless. Even in my early twenties I was told that people would leave a conversation with me, pick up their limbs and their face up off the floor. It wasn’t until some situations in my life occurred that God used to brake a sista down that I learned the value of silence, and bridling my tongue. It was in the days after a stroke and the breakup of a marriage filled with infidelity, trying to recover and left trying to care for two children alone that I was broken in such a way I asked God to change me. I had to realize my ability to control my environment by my words was an attempt to keep me safe and keep people from hurting me, which did not work! I stopped looking at all that was wrong around me and started seeing one of the greatest issues was the attitude that was attached to the functioning of my mouth. There is still some sting in me and in my ability to articulate in certain environments especially when it comes to anyone attempting to harm my children, natural or spiritual or my spouse, and my mom, dad and siblings and close friends. I still can make it plain, but now it is done only when I know I am released to not for protection or sport.
Recently I have seen and encountered people that although they have suffered much and gone through some things they are still looking around blaming everyone else but themselves and still using their words to attempt to kill off people, and many of them for no apparent reason only to kill, destroy or make people feel less than who they are. I have heard conversations and read text messages where people take great pride in trying to use words, to strip people of confidence, ability, and life itself. I have also witnessed a generation that feels that their every breath should be shared with the world and nothing is sacred. Family problems, arguments, issues, all laid out in plain fashion in very public arenas. We can even look to the type of television shows that are most popular, they are reality television where harsh words and people using their speech to take people out socially, mentally and emotionally are the norm. We as a whole have not learned to be quiet, or even temper our words. We think that silence is a sign that we are weak. I am here to set the record straight, it takes more strength and more God focus to be quiet than it does to say everything that is on your mind, especially when it is destructive, malicious and manipulative. It is especially wrong when our primal aim is to rip apart the life or a part if someone’s life by the things that we are speaking.
Sometimes we need to learn how to BE QUIET. Sometimes it is in our best interest to remove ourselves from atmospheres that inspire us to be disparaging and damaging with our words, and get a grip on ourselves. But the one thing that I have found is that we will continue to take pride in being a weapon of mass destruction with our words until we realize that we need God to step into our lives in a different way than He has been present. It won’t be until we learn that we need to do the changing instead of attempting to dominate people with our words and beating them into submission with our verbiage. Whether we believe it or not words are powerful, but they also have this innate ability to come back on us and to instead of being the weapon we use against others become the weapon that destroys us. Learning to be quiet and bridling your tongue may be the one thing that saves us from our own destruction!
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