“She’s Got a Mouth on Her!”

“She’s got a mouth on her!”..definitely a phrase I’ve heard before but have never heard it used in my direction. Sure I have a mouth but it’s always been polite, truthful and one to be proud of. Heh okay, maybe I’m somewhere in between. Where do you stand?

I wasn’t going to set a New Year’s resolution but it seems God had a different plan. Right after the new year He told me to stop gossiping. WHAT? ME? I’m not a gossip! *Immediate offense begins.* But the thing I’ve learned about God is that He’s always right, whether I agree or not. So it took me a few days but finally I decided to ask Him “okay, how am I a gossip? I don’t see it.” And since then I’ve noticed the little things that I do and say that aren’t pleasing to Him.

In the dictionary, the meaning of gossip is “a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others” or “rumor or report of an intimate nature”. Still, I didn’t think that was me. I’m really not known for walking around telling secrets and blabbing about who said and did what with ill intentions. But the thing is, the bible’s definition of gossip is a lot more cumbersome than the dictionary’s. God definitely holds us Christians to a higher standard. The bible teaches us that our words should not be idle and should be pleasing to God. Our words should build others up, not put others down. Our words should be spoken in love for ALL and never be boastful or full of pride. Fairly quickly I understood what I’ve been doing wrong.

It’s not that I’m a gossip in the worldly sense, but the truth is, many things come from my heart and out of my mouth that are not pleasing to God. You see, your words can go in 2 directions: pleasing to God or not pleasing to God. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a third option of “eh, I guess that’s okay” or “I really don’t care about that.” If God cares about every single hair on our head, I think he probably cares about every word we speak. Sure, giving someone a recipe could probably fall in that “I don’t care” category, but seeing as you’re sharing something positive with someone else without any pride in your heart, I think that’s probably a “pleasing” conversation. See what I mean?

Whenever God puts something like this on my heart I start doing research on what I could possibly do to change. Of course pray and ask God to change me but I’m a bit more of an action person than a “wait for a change” person. So I found a devotional called “30 Days to Taming Your Tongue” and have committed to reading a chapter each day and doing an evaluation of what came out of my mouth every night. I’m also journaling any reflections I have or things I feel from God about this. I don’t have much to report as I’m only on day 3 but I must say that I’ve already become more aware of the good and bad things I do/say each day.

I propose a challenge to you. Take an account of 1 day of your life. Evaluate the things you say and the intent to which you speak them. Take a look at your motive during conversations and the way you TRULY feel about certain things/people, whether you say them or not. And if you find things that aren’t up to the standard you think they should be, commit to changing. It’s a hard hard thing to do as a woman, but seeing as at the end of our life we’ll have to give an account of EVERY word spoken, it’s definitely a journey worth taking.