Things Mama Taught Me: "Don't Play with Fire"

My parents were super-careful about the use of fire, and were vigilant about teaching us the same. Their caution paid off for they never had a serious fire in our home or on the farm. (The rural schoolhouse did burn down, but they had no responsibility for that incident.)

They were very cautious about other things that they must have considered to be "fire" too. It was as if they had been instructed—and passed on to us—"Don't play with fire. Don't have feelings of anger or sexual interest or self-esteem. These things will destroy you." Such feelings when properly channeled don't destroy us; in fact, repressing them will likely do more harm. Just as fire has great benefits for our lives, so do our emotions. Fire must be managed and controlled, as do emotions. Some people are—perhaps my own parents were—as afraid of their angry feelings and their sexuality and their self-interest as they would be of a fire, but that is not what the Bible teaches.

The Scripture plainly tells us that the tongue is a flame of fire. "It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell." (James 3:5, 6 MSG) James also says that we are prone to stumble in many ways, but the person who is never at fault in what he says is able to keep his whole body in check. That makes me wonder if we are missing something when we claim about some weakness we have, "I just can't help it." Perhaps our basic indiscretion is what we are saying.

No man can tame the tongue—that's James speaking again. The Apostle Paul reminds us, though, "Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt." (Colossians 4:6 NASB) We need to bring God into our use of the "flame of fire" tongue, so that it does not burn out of control and damage the lives of those around us—and burn us as well while we are playing with it.

MaryMartha

Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture marked NASB is from the New American Standard Bible, used by permission of The Lockman Foundation, www.lockman.org

Art from http://www.sxc.hu/