HAVE YOU EVER...kept your mouth shut?

I cannot keep my mouth shut.  I always have something to say.  The harder I try to keep my mouth shut the more the good, the BAD, and the UGLY seems to come out.

I have been trying to read scriptures about this and memorize them.  In my search for relevant verses, I keep returning to Proverbs.

King Solomon is attributed for writing most of Proverbs.  When he was a young king in search of answers, he asked the Lord for wisdom.  God told him he could have whatever he wanted.  Solomon asked for wisdom!  Not wealth or health or love…but wisdom.

My father once told me that I was wise.  I was a young girl when he told me this and it has stuck with me.  I believe that if he saw me today, I don’t know if he would think I was as wise as I might have been in that moment in the past.

Even so, I am seeking God’s wisdom with my mouth.  I am going to share some Proverbs with you in which I am focusing.  Maybe they will save your tongue too.

He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.  Proverbs 21:23

He who answers before listening – that is his folly and his shame.  Proverbs 18:13

When words are many, sin is not absent, but who holds his tongue is wise.   

Proverbs 10:19

(There’s plenty more.  Proverbs 17:27-28; 18:6-8.  Feel free to pass any back to me that 

you like.)

HAVE YOU EVER been wise?

Ecclesiastes 5:2, Ephesians 4:29

HAVE YOU EVER...heard a good Bible story?

My favorite, favorite thing about my perfect job is that I get to tell Bible stories every day!  I just finished studying the transfiguration with a friend of mine.  When I sat down to look at some of my lesson plans, I noticed that I had purposefully skipped the story of the transfiguration.  Why don’t we talk about this more?  Why did I skip it?  Well, I teach preschoolers and it is a big concept.  Even so, I am known for saying that preschoolers have much more potential than anyone thinks.

Some religions even celebrate the transfiguration.  The coolest part about the transfiguration is that God spoke.  Peter is talking about building some tents and is completely flabbergasted when God speaks. 

God did not just speak audibly all of the time in the Bible, let alone the New Testament.    My favorite Ooooo! moments are when he spoke to Jesus.  His baptism with the trinity present.  Ooooh!  John 12:28, during his last week before the crucifixion.  There was Paul on the road to Damascus.  Others were visited by angels, sent by God.  Some were sent dreams from God.  Awesome, but in the transfiguration, God spoke!

I heard Beth Moore preach about this once.  She said that we cannot learn when we are talking.  She said this was “a holy shut thee up!”  Luke 9:35 says that God enveloped them with a cloud and said, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” Oooooo!  Listen to him!

Do we shy away from God’s word, when it is hard to understand?  I am going to be working the transfiguration into my lesson plans next year.  I want my kids to learn how to listen to God speak.

HAVE YOU EVER listened to him?

Proverbs 1:33, 2 Peter 1:16-18

HAVE YOU EVER...loved your enemy?

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Luke 6:35

At school, we just talked about how disobeying God is doing the opposite of what he wants us to do.  It is not easy to do what God wants us to do all of the time.  Especially, when God calls us to love our enemy or even just our neighbor.  Even so, God works in our lives even when we tell him no.  We can learn about this from Jonah.  My favorite part of the Jonah story is how the people on the boat learned about the one true God when he caused the storm and miraculously stopped it too. 

There is more.  Jonah is a prime example of crabby obedience.  I find myself saying yes to God, but griping the whole time too.  Jonah preached to the Ninevites and they were forgiven, even though they didn’t deserve it.  Then Jonah goes and pouts about it.  God sends a plant to shade him in his sulking, and then sends a worm to kill it too. 

I have a terrible green thumb.  My green thumb is nonexistent.  I kill all plants.  When I try to grow them or people give them to me, they don’t last long.  I have a few plants around my house that are HEARTY!  I don’t know why they are still alive.  Every time my mom visits she says, your plants need watering.  Even my youngest son has started to take the initiative. 

God tells Jonah that he did nothing to keep the plant alive!  He did not plant it or grow it himself.  Why was he so upset?  He was having crabby obedience. 

Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.  It came quickly and died quickly.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.  Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

JONAH 4:10-11 NLT

Most translations say that the people of Nineveh couldn’t even tell their left from their right, comparing them to children.  Would you wish harm on children?  Shouldn’t we be seeking people out like this?

God calls us to obey him.  God calls us to love everyone. 

God calls us to preach his word to EVERYONE!  God calls us to do it with joy!

HAVE YOU EVER had joyful obedience?

Psalm 16:9, Luke 15:7