Texting Hallelujah!™

When Holding Your Tongue Is Not Enough

Keeping quiet can prevent an argument. What can put out the anger that keeps burning long after it’s over?

Have you recently found yourself in an explosive situation where your best course of action was simply to shut up? You may succeed in keeping your words to yourself. But what about your thoughts? You try to keep a pleasant expression while nursing bitterness and envy. You imagine your opponents being humiliated, paying for what they did, or even dying in horrible “accidents.” And you, the tortured one, triumphantly come out on top? 

“It’s ok,” you tell yourself. “No one can hear your thoughts. No one will ever know…”

Many people appear to control their tongues while a fire rages within them—their thoughts entertaining all sorts of terrible things. The tongue is not simply an instrument of speech; it’s also an instrument of thought. And what we think eventually directs the course of our lives.

And EVERYONE battles their thoughts. Even the righteous James, a brother of Jesus Christ and a leader in the early church in Jerusalem, included himself when he said, “We all stumble in many ways.” He doesn’t say, “Some have problems…occasionally.” The fire rages even in the people we hold up as examples of virtue.

“We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check” (James 3:2 NIV).

You might think you’re doing well because you’re not a murderer, you don’t sleep around, and you don’t steal, slander, or lie. And it’s good that you don’t! But do you entertain these actions in your vivid thought life? 

James 3:6 (NIV) warns how destructive the tongue can be: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire.”

Your thoughts may even now object: “But isn’t that only if I speak out loud?” 

Jesus said, “the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them” (Matthew 15:18 NIV). And Solomon said, “as he thinks…so he is” (Proverbs 23:7 NASB). Holding your tongue may help for a time, but your inner thoughts eventually become spoken words and actions.

What can put out the fire that rages in our minds? Hebrews 9:14 (NIV) says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ…cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

Abandon every thought and word that comes from the kind of wisdom James describes as Earthly, Natural, and Demonic (James 3:15 NASB). The initials spell out what to do with it: END. Then pursue the wisdom from above. 

“The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:17-18 NIV).

Today, hold your tongue when you need to, and feed your thoughts with the pure Word of God.