Sep. 27, 2009 - Taming the Tongue--Discussing James 3 with a six year old.
Last week I had an impromptu Bible study with the boys, and came away stunned with Asrat's perceptive understanding of the Scripture we had just read. I read to them from James 3, about the power of the tongue, especially it's power to injure and devastate lives.
This is what we read from the book of James:
1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise 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. 6The tongue also is 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.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
When I started explaining all that, Asrat said "Wait, wait! Can I tell you what it means?......It is like when a Mama and a Daddy fight and argue and say mean things to each other, then their children learn to do that and grow up and do that to their husband and wife, and their children grow up learning that and do that too, and it is just like a forest fire that spreads and spreads and is so hard to put out.....Hey, Mama, why do you and Baba argue sometimes?"
Ouch.
Not only did he nail the intent of that Scripture right on the head, but he unintentionally brought conviction down on my head. Josiah and I don't make a habit of arguing, and we actually get along pretty well, but we're not perfect and there have been times of intense stress where we've had a real blow-out, and of course, those are the times a child would remember. Unfortunately for everyone around me, there are times when my mouth works much faster than my brain. Sometimes that just causes embarassment to me (having said something incredibly stupid), but other times that has caused pain to others.
We had a long and wonderful discussion about relationships and the power of our words to hurt and to heal. Asrat's accurate perception continued as we talked, and he had obviously soaked this all in and figured it out. We talked about how even if we were raised hearing hurtful words, God can help us change the direction of our own families, and how generation by generation we can learn from the mistakes of the ones before us, how we can put out that fire so it doesn't destroy us or our children or grandchildren. We talked about how important it is that clean things, and good things, and uplifting things are what we say, and how we need to control our tongues even when we are feeling very bad on the inside, because of the long-lasting damage a single wrongly spoken word can do. We talked about how God can help us learn to do this, if we ask for help, and Asrat asked me to pray with him so that he could do better at speaking kindly to others, especially to his brothers. I am sure we will come back to this passage many times over the coming years, as "taming the tongue" is such an important part of having healthy relationships and it seems to be such a struggle for us humans to keep our traps shut sometimes.
He's still only six years old, and very much a child with a child's understanding. But I was so blessed by that conversation, to see the lightbulb go on in his head, to see his excitement at grasping a concept so firmly and his happiness to know that the "forest fire" of unkind words does not even have to be lit, if we stay aware of what we speak. That evening I saw a little seed of maturity planted and starting to sprout, and it thrilled my mother's heart.
Comments
Sep. 28, 2009 - WOW
Posted by Katie in Ohio
Just what I needed to hear this morning!! Thanks Asrat. We TRY to speak the positive to our boys, because both of our parents were negative and sarcastic. That style of parenting, alienated my own brothers and me from our mom and my husband's siblings with his mom. Sure, we tease and lose our tempers sometimes but we try to not use our tongues as swords... key word is *try*
