Your tongue will control the course of your life—but you, alone, cannot control it. Perhaps you find that to be an overstatement, and yet if we were to do the digging, through every failure or success; thriving relationship or floundering one; moment of incredible joy or moment of incredible sadness, there is a high probability that your tongue, or someone else's, was either front and centre, or at the very least periphery but proximate to causing or catalysing those moments.

With its ability to shift a mood and a moment by saying the right thing at the right time or the wrong thing at the wrong time, the tongue can change the outcome of a situation, disintegrate the cohesion of a community, ruin the good name of an innocent person, or give a good name to one who does not deserve it.

Slander or Celebration. Gossip or Good News. Grace or Aggression. The tongue has the power to produce either in a moment, and the power we cede to it will control the course of our lives.

It is vital we wrestle with this truth today for many reasons, but most certainly and importantly because of our own negligence and blindness. We think we are in control of what we say most times, so We rarely consider the weight of our words, or the power of our tongue.

James | Fire Starter | James 3:1-12