34 years ago today, I was born!
A year ago on a day like this, I was not as excited as I am today. I was feeling lost, feeling like I was just existing and flowing through life without any impact. Well, what do you know God my Father my friend came in and gave me reassurance that slowly wiped any doubt I had about my existence and purpose: Isn’t He kind? He spoke to me very clearly and let me know that He was doing something new in my life; I have a testimony that He has done and continues to do exactly that.
Today, I am excited! I am happy to be alive. I am content with what I am and where I am at: Contentment
This year, I am pursuing surrender. Complete surrender to God.
One of the areas that is clearly wanting is my words, my speech.
Let your words always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you should answer each person. Colossians 4:6
To have my words, your words always gracious is one uphill task. James let’s us know just how uphill this is:
2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8 but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh. James 3:2-12
Taming the tongue, putting a bridle on the tongue – the small member of our bodies that can cause fires, destroy reputations, kill relationships yet at the same time used to praise God in heaven 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
But Guess what?
On my own I cannot be gracious in speech, I cannot have words that are seasoned with salt nor would I even know how to answer each person. But God! Hallelujah
for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13
God works in me enabling me both to will and to work for His good pleasure. He enables me to will and work to have my words always be gracious, seasoned with salt and to know how to answer each person.
It is this and numerous assurances in God’s Word that have me at peace and at rest.
Which reminds me, the first book I read for the year was ‘Surrender: The Heart God Controls” by Nancy Leigh Demoss (Now Nancy Wolgemuth). One of the key lessons I have taken from this gem is that I am a Bondslave. It is a lesson I am musing over, will write about it soon . . .
