Think Before You Speak

As Christians, we love to quote scriptures about how our tongue gets us into trouble because of what we say. James 3:8 tells us that no one can tame the tongue. That is true if we aren’t willing to first take control of our thoughts. The tongue is the weapon that cuts deep but what we think is the fuel that ignites our tongue to speak.

One analysis of tests taken by one million respondents, showed that by the age of 20, we know about 42,000 words and by the age of 60, we know 48,000 words. Speech comes from our thoughts.

In 2 Corinthians 10:5 we are told to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. I, half-joking, say I have no filter between when I think and when I speak. In truth, that causes problems. If I allow the Holy Spirit to be my filter, I could keep negative thoughts from becoming speech.

Les Parriot, a professor of psychology and ordained minister, has done studies that have found that we have over 35,000 thoughts a day; and wait, about 78% are NEGATIVE. So some quick math tells us that about 27,000 thoughts a day are negative. Let that sink in! Even if we try real hard and only half of our thoughts are negative, that is still about 17,000 a day.

With those kinds of numbers you might say, why try? Because everyday, with Christ in us, we can strive to be better than the last. I strive to remind myself daily of 2 Corinthians 10:5 and when I stumble, cry out for the help Holy Spirit gives us.

Gary Elrod