If You Can't Say Something Nice....

Some of the most profound Biblical statements can be found in the book of Proverbs. Another interesting thought is that if you start reading a chapter a day on the first day of the month, you will read through the entire book of Proverbs by the last day of that month. Try it! You might like it so much you'll do it again next month.

Okay, so much for the advertisements. I'm looking at couple of simple verses of scripture in, you guessed it, Proverbs. Chapter 17 verse 24 which says, "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." Also in Proverbs 4:20-23 it says, "My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them. And health to all their whole body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life."

I can remember back when a black man by the name of Rodney King, was beat by the Los Angeles Police Department (I think I remember at a gas station) for doing, I don't know what and when the dust settles he is saying to the media "Can't we all just get along?" Now I don't know all the details of the Rodney King story but I wanted to use the words to make a point.

The Bible tells us that pleasant words are as sweet as a honeycomb and can bring healing to our bones. It also tells us to "listen" and not to depart from its sayings. God has called us to be good stewards of His Word and we need to listen to Him as He draws us close to Him using the "pleasant words of life." God should be our best friend, because, as you know, He is our only hope for eternity. A whole lot of years later, James, the half-brother of Jesus would say, "...let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God."

So much of the world is full of anger and deception. I can't even begin to wonder what that tastes like but we need to look at the examples from God's Word as we live our lives around one another. I remember when I first got saved. I worked as an overhead crane operator out at Kaiser Steel in Fontana, California. I had a lot of friends and we could literally, "cuss the wallpaper off a wall" with our speech. When I read this passage from the book of James, I treated my speech like it was a phonograph record player and I turned my speaking down from 78 rpm's to 33 1/3 rpm's and started thinking of what I was about to say before I said it. It didn't take long to change my vocabulary and eliminate the foul language from my life.

"Pleasant words are a honeycomb..." I believe that to be true. Of course I've always heard you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. People watch us. Especially those of us who are professing Christianity. They want to see that there is REALLY something different in the Christian walk. If we walk and talk just as the world does, we will not draw very many flies!

Dave