Gossip has been running wild in our little town lately. Maybe the winter is too long, or the town too small. I don’t know. I only know that innocent people are being cruelly hurt and good intentions are being entirely misread.

This morning I took a bag of trash out to the burning barrel and lit a match to it. Several hours later I happened to notice the barrel was still smoking. Every now and then a gust of wind carried the smoke beyond the rooftop. It reminded me of a Bible verse, “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire.”

It seems so easy to pass on a word of gossip, criticism or judgement. And how often these hastily spoken words seem to billow up, carried along by the winds of idle chatter, polluting and ruining. Oh, how we need to watch our tongues!

One flame can save a life by providing a fire for warmth or cooking. One flame can also destroy a forest that has taken years to grow. “The tongue is a fire.” We must guard it as one guards a burning candle or an open fireplace, lest one spark get away and ignite an uncontrollable blaze.

Words can never be ‘unsaid’, as most of us have painfully learned. They may not be malicious. Not even intended to hurt. But just carelessly spoken, unnecessarily adding to a thought or idea about someone else. Too late we often think, “I wish I hadn’t said that.”

LORD, teach us to watch our tongues, that we might not be guilty of throwing out the spark or adding to the blaze that destroys so rapidly. May there be words of love on our lips today.

James 3:5-6: “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire.”