Forget the Midas Touch—Try the Gentle Tongue (Proverbs 15:4)
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Proverbs 15:4
A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.
Yesterday, in praying through Proverbs 12:18, we saw that our words can build someone up or break someone down. The tongue brings or breaks life, was the message. And I said then that Proverbs had given us that message before and we were bound to see it again, and GUESS WHAT?
It only took 24 hours! Proverbs is back giving us the same core message, visualized in a different way. I particularly love the way it’s framed in this verse:
‘A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.’
As we established yesterday, I’m not exactly the poster child for gentleness – ‘Laserbeam Luke’ still haunts me sometimes in my sleep. But if we’re going to aim our words anywhere, what an advantage it would be to aspire to gentleness in our tongues and our words.
Why? Because they are a tree of life! Notice this verse doesn’t make that figurative. It doesn’t say ‘A gentle tongue is like a tree of life’ or ‘as a tree of life.’ Nope. It says it is a tree of life.
Forget the Midas touch – the gentle tongue doesn’t turn things to gold, it turns them into gardens.
As we’ve seen, the tongue may be small, but it bears the fruit of eternity – figs or thorns, depending on the gardener.
It can make or break. ‘Perverseness in it breaks the spirit.’ Like we saw yesterday, just as easily as our tongues can bring life, they can break it too.
Therefore, as I expressed yesterday and want to double down on today, we must pay close attention to our tongues and our words. Outside of the heart, the tongue is the most important thing to guard and protect. In fact, in the inner man the heart is the thing to be most guarded and kept, and in the outer man it’s the tongue.
So as gardeners with our words, we must always be looking at what seeds we’re planting and what weeds may be growing. Because we will reap what we sow.
Remember Proverbs 18:20-21, which says:
‘From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied;
he is satisfied by the yield of his lips.
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.’
So the question today is similar to yesterday. I’d encourage you to ask yourself and reflect:
What kind of garden are you planting and sowing with your words?
And for each look you take at yourself, take multiple at the Lord, the Master Vinedresser, the Great Gardener, who sent His Son to be without blemish in a crooked and depraved generation, in whose speech was no perversity but only grace, truth, and gentleness.
Let’s pray for a tongue like His again this morning.
