The Tongue
The Flint water crisis that started in 2014, continues still today, long after the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan was contaminated with lead and Legionella bacteria.
In April 2014, during a financial crisis, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley changed Flint’s water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents began to complain about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water.
Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels. Soon after people began to get sick, and some died.
The tragedy in Flint was only one kind of pollution that a person can become susceptible to. There are many others that are talked about and debated in the public square. Daily we hear news of water pollution, CO2 levels causing global warming, smog contaminating our air, etc.
One less talked about form of pollution is that of the soul. This type happens in a variety of ways and the destruction it leaves could very well be just as impactful than that of some of the other types of pollution we hear about today.
James Chapter 1 in the Bible talks about this very thing when it concludes the chapter with this verse: James 1:26 (NIV) Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
If you read through the book of James, one of the first pollutants we use to violate ourselves and others are our tongue. James finds it fascinating that such a small piece of our body can cause such good or evil.
On a daily basis, whether it is the words we speak to one another verbally or the words through social media we type, we can leave a path of destruction in our wake.
We say nasty things to one another; we tell lies about one another; we make assumptions that we idly speak of to one another, or we say right-out mean things to each other to tear each other down.
Pollution of the tongue is creating a mental health crisis in our day and age. Suicide rates continue to increase, and depression and overall mental health issues are on the rise as a person can spout hurtful things over the internet without truly seeing or feeling the impact our words are making on another individual.
Consider later in James 3 as it says… 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
Also, consider this… 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
This week you have a choice of what you will do with your words… Will you build people up or tear them down? Know that your words have eternal value and consequences. Remember life and death are in the power of the tongue.
Jesus said in Mathew 3:36 says (KJV) But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
I challenge you this week to be slow to speak your mind and quick to say positive, truthful things to your friends, family, and community that will encourage them. I also challenge you to not allow others to pollute your soul with the words that they speak that are evil.
Accept into your heart only the things you know God wants you to hear.