Day 168 – Proverbs 25-26

Talking Points

• Self-promotion has become the way of our world. Our newsfeed culture begs us to exalt ourselves to others. God’s wisdom says seeking your own glory is not real glory! It says that big talk is usually empty talk. God’s wisdom calls for us to let others praise us. A wise lesson! A sincere and spontaneous compliment means so much more, anyway.
• Kindness shown to enemies ultimately looks like God. While it seems nonsensical to feed and care for your enemies, trusting them to God mirrors our Savior, who died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8).
• Becoming consumed in defending your own cause is an impossible and unprofitable endeavor. Be careful. As you speak your words of defense, they will hear what they want and twist what they hear. Hasty, careless words offered to a fool make you sadly similar to that fool.

Thoughts

Fire is one of the craziest things. When controlled, it can be used to do amazing, beneficial things like cooking, heating, lighting, purifying, and forging. But, if left unbridled, fire can cause injury, destruction, and death. As long as a fire is fueled, it will continue to burn. But, remove its source of fuel, and it will extinguish.

It is easy to see why God would draw an analogy between fire and our words. Our words can be amazing and beneficial. In just these two chapters, we see that, when we are in control of our mouths, our words can be encouraging, honoring, persuasive, timely, right, wise, corrective, faithful, refreshing, gentle, sweet, truthful, trustworthy, good, and sincere. However, when left unbridled, our words can be argumentative, boastful, dishonest, disloyal, antagonistic, backbiting, contentious, wicked, foolish, useless, hurtful, meddling, divisive, flattering, insincere, hateful, and crushing.

They’re just words. But, just think of all of the damage done by “just” words. Think of conflicts and strife that have been set ablaze, stirred up, and kept burning by words. Maybe we would all do well to be slow to speak, considering if our words are adding fuel to the fire of an unbridled source of destruction, or if they are controlled and beneficial to those who would hear.

God, keep reminding us and growing us to use our words to honor and please You. Help us be in control of our mouths.

“For lack of wood, the fire goes out,
And where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down.”
– Proverbs 26:20