A FAST ON WORDS

“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.  To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools.  Be not rash with your mouth, nor let 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.”

Ecclesiastes 5:1-2

I am learning how important it is to prune my words so that only the fruitful ones will come out of my mouth.  Too often it’s easy to complain and grumble.  But that doesn’t uplift and encourage one another. 

Words are life giving, meant to build up and encourage.  Too often mine are not.  It’s not that they are bad; they just don’t produce fruit, so what it the purpose of saying them?  Taming the tongue is a goal I want to keep ever mindful of.  Of course, it starts with taming my thoughts by pruning them of jealousy, selfish ambition, and feeling like I have to have an opinion on everything.

I hear a lot of words that are attributed to God or to the Holy Spirit; but I wonder.  The Spirit of God will never conform to the world.  This world has become a world of words.  Twenty-four/seven there is chatter ever present on the air waves.  My ears grow dull; my thoughts go into overdrive and become jumbled and incoherent. 

I am becoming more and more appreciative of stillness, and silence, in my thoughts and in my words.  A fast on words seems like a good practice to me at this point in my life…something to think about.