Burning Down the Neighborhood With Your Flaming Tongue

Suggested Reading: James 3:1-12

When I lived in Snook, just outside of College Station, most of the time people just burned their own garbage because garbage pick-up was either too expensive or unavailable. And while there was a dump less than ten miles away, many people waited and only took the things that couldn’t be burned to the dump. Now, if you’ve ever burned your trash in a metal can like most of the people around there, you’re used to seeing little sparks shoot off, especially when you first get the fire going. Normally, those sparks aren’t a big deal; they usually burn out before they hit the ground and the ones that don’t can be stepped on and easily put out. Well, this one time, a neighbor who lived just a few doors down was burning his trash like he always does. On this particular day, however, a spark shot off unnoticed by the neighbor and the grass was extremely dry. Within seconds, the field was aflame. Fortunately, we have a volunteer fire department based just a couple blocks away and the fire was put out before any houses were damaged. But after that all of the neighbors watched those sparks very carefully for a while, worried that the smallest spark could set the whole neighborhood on fire.

In James chapter 3, Jesus’ brother described a different kind of spark. He wrote, “The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:5-6, NIV). In the verses immediately before, James also compared the tongue to the rudder of a ship or the bit in a horse’s mouth, both of which are small things which are able to dramatically influence the direction being traveled. The tongue and the words it produces may seem insignificant at times but they can have a dramatic effect. 

Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the tongue itself holds the power of life and death. And yet we use our tongues constantly, rarely thinking about the dramatic influence a few words can have. We recount a dramatic conversation and shift a few minor things to make us look a little better without considering that we have moved into deceit. We allow ourselves to speak in anger, knowing that the words we use will be words we regret in a few hours. We make a joke at someone else’s expense, all in good fun, of course, without considering the effect the joke will have on the person we’re discussing. Or we simply let a few words slip in the wrong company and a key fact given without the proper context destroys someone’s reputation.

Words are tiny things, but they are more powerful than most weapons of war. Words have the power to alter the course of history, to bring death and pain, or to heal and give life. Don’t let your words fly lightly. The tiniest spark can start uncontrollable fires. 

Trying to Catch God

Suggested Reading: Luke 8:11-21

I used to pastor a little country church called Lone Oak Baptist Church in Snook, TX. Snook is right outside College Station. In fact, if you take the main highway out of Snook it turns into University Dr. and takes you right past Texas A&M. Driving back and forth on that road, I'm reminded of the first time I ever stopped in College Station. I was with the Hardin-Simmons University Concert Choir on our annual tour and we had stopped to eat at FreeBirds across the street from the A&M Campus. When I was done eating, I decided to wander onto campus (for the half-hour I had before the bus left) and look around. I was hoping to run into a friend of mine who attended A&M, but didn't hold out much hope for it. After all, A&M was a huge campus with tens of thousands of students and he didn't know I was coming. But I found a student center, walked in, and he was sitting against a wall studying for class. The odds were astronomical that I would actually catch him that way, but it just happened to work out.

In Luke 8:19, Jesus' family comes to see him but they are "unable to get near him because of the crowds" (NIV). As I was studying that particular passage, I discovered that the Greek word translated "get near him" literally means "to fall in with, as if by accident." In other words, Jesus' family had come to town and they were hoping to catch Jesus. It wasn't something they had prearranged. There was no plan in place. They had simply come to town for one reason or another and were hoping to catch him.

Unfortunately, that is the way that we often treat our relationship with God. We have other things that we are trying to accomplish, work that has to be done, family obligations to attend to, friends to see, business to work out, and we hope that somewhere along the way, as we attend to all these other things, that we will have a few moments where we happen to catch God.  We have no prearranged plan; meeting with God is not a big enough priority to merit setting aside a block of time. We just hope to catch God in a few spare minutes while we are on our way to accomplish something else.

The problem with trying to "catch" God is that actually catching God is a rare thing. We always have something else that needs to be done, someone else to see, a few minutes of rest to re-energize ourselves for the rest of the day's activities. There is always something else to do. If we leave our relationship with God up to the times where we can "catch" God, pretty soon any relationship we actually have will deteriorate. We might catch God from time to time, but most of the time it simply won't happen.

Are you satisfied with just catching God when you have a chance? If not, you're going to have to plan. Set some time aside to be with God and make it a priority or you just might miss your chance.