Most Powerful Organ

First an apology I really ranted last post and a big thank you for all the supportive replies I didn't really deserve after being so down on everyone. Last night I went for supper with a friend and through our discussion we really ended up reflecting on what James wrote

James 3:5-6
The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell

Both of us were reflecting that the things that we regretted the most were the times we spoke without thinking. Somehow the things we say are worse than anything we do or don't do and there's nothing you can do that really will erase those words. A word once spoken can't be taken back.

I remember being told that I had two ears and only one mouth for a reason that we should listen twice as much as we speak. Boy is that hard, I like to talk and communicate I'm good at it but listening is hard. However, we risk hurting people more with what we say than when we listen....very rarely perhaps never have I heard someone complain that someone else listened too much.

This also applies to my faith walk, I'm good at talking my faith and I'm good at telling God what I think. However, I'm bad at listening. Every world religion I've looked at incorporates the idea of sitting and being still and listening. This says to me that this must be important to human well being besides being an important way to connect with a God that can seem distant. The problem is we're all just bad at it, we pack our lives with activities, noise, people, and forget to leave time to just sit and be.

So reflecting on this I'm going to find time in my trip to just sit and reflect. I'm going to use the week on the beach in Egypt as a built in quiet time for me. I'm also going to keep working on keeping my tongue under control to listen more and talk less. I'm going to see what that means for my relationships.