FEB 29

Proverbs 10:19

When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.
A wise old owl lived in an oak,
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard,
Why can’t we all be like the wise old bird?

How many of your words this last week were words of encouragement? How many sentences were devoted to helping lift anxious hearts? If you were paid 10 cents for every kind word you said and had to give away 5 cents for every critical comment, would you be rich or poor today? Do you realize that there are people all around you who are discouraged? God can use your words to breathe life into a person who is piled by life’s problems. Proverbs 15:4: “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life.”

Have you ever said, “Lord, my tongue now belongs to you?” That’s where Romans 6:13 comes in, which challenges us to “not offer the parts of our body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer ourselves to God…” God wants us to say something like this: “Lord, I’ve been using my tongue for myself but I now want to start using it for you. Here are my lips, let me speak for you. Here is my mouth, let my mouth speak the words that you want.”

Proverbs 16:1 says, “To a man belongs the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue.” Your comments can be put under the Lord’s control. He can give you lips of life. He can give you a tender tongue. He can put words of wisdom in your mouth. He can sanctify your speech. All you need to do is surrender your tongue to Him. It’s not only impossible to be wise without the Word of God; our speech will only be changed through the Scriptures.

Wisdom in Proverbs,
Shaun Estrada