Shade Tree Wisdom 6/6/13

Shade Tree Wisdom 6/6/13


“Watch your step when you enter God’s house.
Enter to learn. That’s far better then mindlessly offering sacrifice,
Doing more harm than good.
Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think.
Don’t be too quick to tell God what He wants to hear.
In charge, not you – the less you speak, the better”.
    Eccl 5,1-2

All of us know someone who needs to hear and heed that advice. Our world is filled with noise, words without end, and we hear so much chatter that we do not hear the one Voice we Need to hear – the voice of God, the Words of the Bible.

In his letter James speaks of 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”. Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Luke 6,45. James adds, “The tongue can no man tame.”  It can spoil a tender moment, ruin friendships, curse and kill a spirit. Only in our death will it die. In the words of an old tombstone inscription:

Beneath this stone, a lump of clay,
Lies Robert Andrew young,
Who, on the twenty-fourth of May,
Began to hold his tongue.

Ecclesiastes puts all our effort into perspective. We try, and everything seems so promising at first, but nothing ever seems to amount to much, and the harder we work, the less the result. Till we finally come to understand the truth that without God in the plan, without His Word as our guide, without Christ as our Savior, the result of all our striving is dust.

Maybe the bit I read this morning suits here. One business man to another,

Actually, I've found 90% of success isn't showing up it’s shutting up”. The Christian is always ready to say, “Thy words have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.

GPD 6/6/13