“A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous (harsh) words stir up anger. 2. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools pours out foolishness. 3. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”
Proverbs is so full of good advice that one scarcely knows where to stop and reflect. These three verses gave me pause recently, and I want to share what I found in them. First, we are reminded that “a soft answer turns away wrath.” I must confess that when I taught sixth grade back in the mid to late sixties, I could really give some harsh words to misbehaving students. One day I decided to try an experiment, which proved that this verse is true. At the start of the school day I whispered as the students came into the classroom. I am not lying when I say that even the most boisterous students started whispering. They told each other that “we are whispering today.” I don’t know how long this lasted on my part or on their part, but my soft answer that day did not stir up, either my anger, or theirs. I try to remember this lesson in my daily contacts with people. Second, we are reminded that: “The tongue of the wise uses knowledge aright: but the mouth of a fool pours out foolishness.” This verse gives us some good advice on every level of our dealing with people, but what I took away from it this time is that we need to careful what say to people. Words have meanings and words have consequences. What we say, even humorously, can build up or tear down people. Perhaps, we mean no harm whatever; however, our words carelessly given might do harm. I try to remind myself of this when I am dealing with people. I must confess that I forget this from time to time and need to apologize to any that my humorous quips might have hurt. (I was convicted of this as I wrote…) We need to be careful what we say to people and be sure that we are not “pouring out foolishness.” Third, we are reminded that everything that we say or do is seen or heard by the Lord: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” This is a sobering reminder that our Sovereign Lord is aware of everything in our lives. He sees the good things that we do and the bad things that we do. He hears the good things that we say and He hears the hurting things that we say. We also need to remember that God sees and hears everything that we tweet, put on Face book or put in Emails. We need to remember, however, that the Lord who sees and hears everything also loves us and sent His Son to deliver us from our sins. We also need to remember that His forgiveness is always available when we sincerely repent and confess. There is a lot of good advice in these three verses; we would be wise to take notice of it. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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September 2021
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