Passing Lips

Thoughts pass through the mind like a breeze rustling through the forest, coming and going, carrying spores looking for fertile soil. Sometimes they remain. Other times they are lost in the dark night of forgetfulness. There is life in a thought, some measure of attention it seeks, even if brief, demanding an answer perhaps just for self, audible only to the mind thinking it.

Until…

Until this thought passes the lips. The passing chances the ears of someone other than you, someone intended or not, chances a reception through acceptance or consternation, chances the realm of grace or opinion. No matter where the passing lands or how, the utterance reveals the heart of the one who allowed this thought such a freedom, a meaning conveying a continuum of love or enmity. If love be at the heart, though this may be misunderstood with the onset, all the better for better seeks best. If, peradventure, enmity be at the heart, its guise may come by many a name, even love. A path of enmity, be it either primrose or bramble, finds community in the word “ought.”

For the Christian, it matters whether he says, “I ought” or “you ought.” If he says, “I ought,” his ear has heard what scripture has said, better, heard what our Lord meant, even better if he does it. Should he hear “you ought,” then best if he hears it from Jesus. If he speaks, “you ought,” he risks the slippery slope.

What ought a Christian to do? The only answer is look to Jesus, get to know Jesus. Never is it what would Jesus do, but what did Jesus do? Well, he spent His time teaching, preaching (encouraging), and healing. The sower went out—Jesus, too. So, also must we the faithful.

There is a before going, a time of preparation, a time of learning, a time to allow God to reveal His mystery as He would have it known. To go unprepared invites the unequipped thought.

But, we say, “I am not a teacher, a preacher, a healer.” God would beg to differ.

“For we are of God’s making, created in union with Jesus for a life of good actions already prepared by God for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10; Complete Jewish Study Bible).

The good that God has created waits for us to walk toward, to do. Never in the plain definition by which we think about a teacher, a preacher, or a healer is the way God calls us, though He does call those who are. Each, in the way God made us, will become a teacher, a preacher, a healer because we can share as we are prepared, encourage through fellowship and friendship, and perchance not heal medically, but spiritually by the way God works through us.

All those thoughts, prepared in relationship with Christ, strengthened and affirmed by the Holy Spirit, become seeds when passing the lips.

Let us then ask, “Do we want our words to teach, encourage, and heal? Or something else?