Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
Abraham Lincoln has been quoted as saying, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” This saying is really a very loose translation of what Solomon said in the Proverbs when he stated: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”
James has a lot to say about the tongue and the trouble into which it gets us. “We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” All of us stumble in what we say at times. It is good advice to try always to make our words sweet, because later we may have to eat them. How wise is the policy, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” At times the best response may be silence.
If silence is not an option, probably the best advice on the subject of how to control the tongue is the art of delay. If only we would stop and think carefully before we speak and consider our words before we utter them, we would have a great deal less for which to ask forgiveness. Again it was Solomon who said, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”
We are thankful we can be forgiven, otherwise none of us would have any hope at all. James tells us the harm that can come from the tongue: “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”
Certainly it ought not so to be, but we all have to admit at times we say things that should never have come out of our mouths.
One way to help minimize this problem is to try to cut it off at the pass, so to speak, by not allowing ourselves to think the thoughts that never should be expressed. If we can go to the root of the problem and clean up our thinking, we will clean up our speech.
But how are we to clean up our thoughts surrounded as we are by so much evil? The key is to recognize a bad thought and push it out immediately. There is an old saying, “We cannot stop the birds from landing on our head, but we can keep them from building a nest there.” Think of a bad thought as a bird alighting on the head. Brush it off the minute it arrives, and not only will our thinking be cleaned up but our speech as well.
Jesus gave us words of warning and advice in Matthew when he was speaking to the Pharisees and said, “0 generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”
These are sobering words and we are wise to heed them. Let us work at putting the right things in so we will think and speak right things. May we remember that if we have nothing to say, we do well to remain silent.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One