A lesson on ceiling lights and gossip

Category: AHA News, Newsletter
By: Chaplain Greg

I was visiting with my neighbor this past weekend. He owns the SilverLite factory in Springfield (they make horse trailers). I had read in the newspaper where they recently had a fire in their factory and so I was talking with him about how it got started.

It seems that a ceiling light had an electrical short. A hot spark dropped down and landed in a trash can. The trash can began to burn and got hot enough to ignite the tire of a nearby trailer. The fire spread to the rubber mats in the horse trailer and that ended up melting down the aluminum trailer. While there was no structural damage to the building, everything in the building was covered in a thick layer of black soot from the burning rubber.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes our words can resemble that fire? A little unkind word spoken to someone can spark a reaction of defensive words that can then ignite into a full fledged battle! Relationships can be destroyed, families or congregations can be torn apart. In the end everyone seems to be covered with black “soot”. No one wins, it seems, in a war of words.

God made a promise to Moses in Exodus 4:12 when He stated, “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” This promise is not a “one time offer” made only to Moses. This is a revelation of how our Heavenly Father desires to interact with all of us. God knew that Moses was heading into a difficult situation where he would be facing the Pharaoh of Egypt. God’s promise to Moses was that the right words would be given to meet every situation that Moses would find himself in - but Moses had to be willing to let God be in control!

When we are dealing with difficult people, God will do the same for us as He did for Moses. If we let Him, God will teach us how to speak kindly and appropriately in every situation. But, as with Moses, we must be willing to allow God to “teach” us what to say.

I would much rather let God retrain my mouth rather than to go around putting out fires that unkind words have kindled. What do you choose to do?

-Chaplain Greg

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