Sweet Like Honey!
“The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning. Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it: but the instruction of fools is folly. The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips. Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” - Proverbs 16:21-24 Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. The heart of the wise teaches his mouth. How much my heart lacks wisdom is no surprise but the evidence is also found in the words of my mouth. The way I speak is directly related to the state of my heart. If I'm resting in God's grace and peace my mouth will speak encouraging and hopeful things. When I try to find my satisfaction or joy anywhere else my heart is dissatisfied and my mouth shows that too. I transparently know that this is a part of my walk with The Lord that needs work, not my working but rather I need to allow God to work on this in me. Sometimes I start my day with negativity and it's hard to shake that domino effect that starts from even a small bit of pessimism. I carry it to work, into my conversations via text and social media, and it works it's way into my heart. Negative words indicate my foolish heart but they also feed that foolishness when I allow those words to take hold of what I believe. In Proverbs 4 we are warned to guard our hearts because from them flow all things. Sometimes the main enemy of our own heart is our mouth.
If we're being honest I make this ten times worse on myself than it needs to be. Like, it's not even up for debate, I am the best at being the worst when it comes to my attitude at times. The reason for this is that I am so prone to exaggerating. I can remember in middle school this poster for "hyperbole" and if I learned nothing else it was that exaggeration has good use. Somewhere along the way the appropriate place to use this wonderful literary tool became a gray area for me and I injected it into all things. Exaggerating how big the ice cream cone you made at the self-serve cone machine is harmless and anyone who has ever fished with me knows that I see "the biggest fish I've ever seen" anytime I'm near a body of water. These exaggerations generally add to life with humor and excitement. There is a darker side to this habit though. Turning a rough morning or a slight faltering in my plans into a bigger deal than necessary. This isn't just stressful, it's sinful. It puts us in a position where we worry and take our focus off of the Lord's blessing and glory in our life. Which, by the way, is not something we as Christians are supposed to do. Jesus taught that the faith of a mustard seed could move mountains but none of his lessons focused on turning mustard seed size problems into mountains we were too afraid to cross.
The reasons why we let our mouths and hearts become so unwise are numerous but the solution is simple. It's about perspective. We can focus on how big of a problem our negativity is or we can choose to be positive. This portion of scripture ends with "pleasant words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy to the bones". Not only is the word of God telling us that pleasant words are good for our souls but they physically make us feel better. I am a bi-vocational youth pastor who works at a doctors office as well. I have a coworker who is known for how sweet she is to others. And not just some people but all people. She finds something to compliment always and she's always smiling. Is her life perfect? I'm sure it's not but she lives her life from the perspective that she would rather be positively affecting people than bringing them down. I can speak to this influence first hand, I ran into her today and her compliments made my day. I had started today in a less than stellar attitude but her kindness not only was good for my soul but convicted me of my own sinful attitude... and put my heart on the path to writing this post. Which if it helps no one else has already helped me. One compliment, as sweet as honey, changed the trajectory of my entire day and possibly countless others. Speak life into others and be conscious of the choices you make with your words. Some things don't need said, others always need said. If we are the body of Christ then we are the whole body. Don't choose to be the feet or the ear but refuse to be the mouth. Speak Christ-centered encouragement into everyone you meet today.
