Think carefully before you speak

Thu, 14 Sep 2023

‘The one who guards his mouth protects his life;’ Proverbs 13:3

Here is a Bible verse we should all commit to memory: ‘The one who guards his mouth protects his life; the one who opens his lips invites his own ruin’ (Pro 13:3 CSB). Simply put, your tendency to speak without thinking will keep getting you into trouble.

The story is told of a vacuum cleaner salesman who had been given a remote rural area as his territory. He was going from farmhouse to farmhouse on his first day on the job, attempting to sell vacuum cleaners. When he arrived at one farmhouse, he knocked on the door and was met by a farmer’s wife who asked him what he wanted. Without asking permission, he shoved right past her into the kitchen and said, ‘I’m selling vacuum cleaners.’ Shocked, she replied, ‘Wait a minute!’ But he demanded, ‘Ma’am, before you say anything, I want to show you something.’ Then he reached into his bag, pulled out a pail of dirt, and threw it across her kitchen floor. ‘If my vacuum cleaner won’t pick up all that dirt,’ he bragged, ‘then I’ll eat it!’ She looked at him and said, ‘Then you better get busy, ’cause we ain’t got no electricity!’

How often do we have to eat the words we so recklessly toss on the floor of everyday living? Be careful. Jesus said one day, we will give an account for every idle word we speak (see Matthew 12:36). So unless you want to eat your words, think carefully before speaking.