Time Out

The holidays are always a great time to visit family and friends. We traveled to Kansas last week to visit my family. It had been a while since I had seen two of my brothers. It didn't take long before we were joking around and carrying on - just like old times.

But after I gave my younger brother a hard time about something, he jokingly responded with what he thought was a harmless, "shut up." What my brother had forgotten was that his two year old and my two year old were in the same room. I quickly reminded him of the fact and we all agreed that he deserved a "time out." Later that day, however, he slipped again and said the same two words. So, it was back to the corner. He knew his mistake a moment after the words left his mouth.

This experience reminded me about the words in James 3. "If we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could control ourselves in every other way." Our tongue is a powerful thing and when it is left to just our control, trouble always follows. The key is to continually pray for self-control (one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit) and fill your heart with uplifting things so that positive words will flow out of your mouth.

I wish that my brother's mistakes had no ill effects. But not surprisngly, my son repeated that phrase more than once the next day. His time outs were a powerful reminder of the "wild fire" effects that our tongue can have. I know I won't be perfect in this area but it is up to me to keep God in control of my life and practice my own self control as much as possible.