Healing Balm or Caustic Poison?

I have spent the biggest part of the last week inundated with taxes. Property taxes, (including this weird form for the county where they want to tax our paper clips, and staples) quarterlies for the business, and one for the business that is monthly. Taxes Schmaxes. Ugh!

The Lord has really been dealing with me lately about some of the things that come out of my mouth and the attitude of my heart lately. AS IF I wasn't cranky enough from the taxes.


Although my dear husband and I don't fight much anymore I have to admit I have been extremely crabby lately, and I just don't feel like being nice. I have been less than patient with my kids too! That's when the Lord started prodding me that perhaps I should work on being nice.

Then I came across one of the devotions from my aforementioned book, and well I thought I'd share it with you all. Because this whole business of what's coming out of my mouth not being nice is really piercing my heart right now.

Healing Balm or a Caustic Poison?

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock, and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14

“You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” Matthew 12:34-35

When I read this passage I can see a little old man on the ladder of our hearts. His job is to bring up the boxes of words that come out of our mouth. How I wish that the little man on the steps of my heart was always the good man with good words, that Matthew speaks of and not that evil man that gets mentioned too.

I’ve read and heard that for every 10 positive things you say to a person it only takes one negative thing to completely invalidate the positive. I wonder how this can be true. Then I think of some of the spats my husband and I have gotten into where our words were not guarded, but were allowed to flow freely and then I know how it can be true. It only takes a little caustic poison to dissolve pavement into smoke. Yet it takes a lot of balm to heal the wound.

Have you ever noticed that the words we use regarding our speech are verbs. Watch your mouth, guard your tongue, zip it, hush your mouth, mind your manners? The Lord didn’t call us into a passive ‘the–devil-made-me-do-it’ life style. He called us into an active, ever-moving, ever-changing lifestyle that takes effort and guarding on our part to live.

We have people in our lives that have been hurt by verbal poison. Maybe, as in the case with my husband and me, we are the ones to blame for the hurt, for the caustic poison in the soul. We need to be ever mindful of the fact that our heart needs to be stored up with the Word, and the Holy Spirit of God, so that our words are a healing balm being lathered on others whose lives we encounter.

Our words go down into the very depths of others’ lives where they are registered in their hearts, and in their minds. The words we say can either help create the ability to heal like the balms spoken of in the Bible, or our words can be like a caustic poison which spews from our mouths, deforming others spirits with our words. The choice is ours to make.

My prayer today:

Forgive me Jesus for the times I have been caustic instead of healing. Lord give me the desire even when I am hurt or tired to control the words that flow so freely from my mouth. Jesus I want to be used as a healing balm for you, and not as a bottle of caustic poison spewing acid on those around me.

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Hope you enjoyed it.

Good night!

ddonmain