The Tongue’s Prayer

My tongue shall speak of Your word, For all Your commandments are righteousness.
Psalm 119: 172

Dear sister,

How wonderful it would be if our tongue was used only always to speak of God’s word! Imagine the celestial sound of every conversation, every lecture, every song, and every sermon. The harmony would be so euphoric that the stars would sway to the perfect rhythm of God’s perfect poetry! There would be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness—no long suffering, for there would be no suffering at all! This is what Heaven holds for us, the blessed hope for the Believers in Christ, and our tongues shall speak of God’s word, and we shall be forever with our Groom, The Word of God! And so, we wait patiently for that glorious, sinless day.

But, Dear Ones, right now we are here on earth where there is only never an inclination for the tongue to speak of the word of God. A few moments with the television, a few loud sounds of rap from a car, a few shouts from a stadium, and a few rants from an unsatisfied customer in your neighborhood supermarket will show us that the tongue is the cause of anger, slander, complaint, hatred, filthy language, war and murder—the dissonant mess of the world! Right now, the stars are sobbing and the Children of God are striving!

The tongue is in the middle of our mouth. God placed it there for a purpose—to sing praises to Him, to lament with repentance, to converse with Him in prayer, to speak the truth in love to the rebellious, and to praise Him even more! Only always should this be the work of the tongue—designed by the mind of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit! The central location of the tongue should only always remind us that our whole being is for praising and worshiping Him!

Jesus, all God and all man, was able to peer into the hearts of the people that surrounded Him. In Matthew 12:34, He connected their evil heart to the mouth: “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” Again in Matthew, a few chapters later, He makes the association: “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” Matthew 15:11

The psalmist, David, surrounded by enemies, understood the need for verbal restraint from what he truly felt in his heart. Notice what he says in Psalm 39:1,
“I said, ‘I will guard my ways,
Lest I sin with my tongue;
I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,
While the wicked are before me.'”

And David’s son, Solomon, in the wisdom that God gave him, said much the same:
Whoever guards his mouth and tongue
Keeps his soul from troubles.
Proverbs 21:23

Because I have not heeded the word of God, and allowed an unbridled tongue to offend, criticize and complain, my soul has been troubled many times.
Precious Sisters, how can I extend solid counsel to you when I have failed to glorify God with my own tongue? There is nothing I can do or say to explain myself out of this sinful dilemma. And so, I shall pray with thankfulness for the Holy Spirit’s kind conviction to our hearts at this time.

Dear Heavenly Father Who created every part of my being, have mercy on me a sinner.
My tongue has caused very large problems for me and for others,
problems that point to the sinful nature that I possess.

Instead of praising Thee, my tongue complained to Thee.
Instead of singing to Thee, my tongue rebelled in discontent.
Instead of proclaiming Thy Word to a needy world, my tongue kept silent in fear.
Instead of presenting the Gospel of Grace, my tongue incited blasphemy.

Precious God, Triune, Holy, Almighty and Compassionate,
the “should haves” for the use of my tongue are numerous.
I should have responded kindly to an unkind person.
I should have prayed for the one who hurt my feelings.
I should have presented the Truth of Thy word to the one who denied and compromised it.

How can it be, Sweet Creator, that this little rudder, of the vessel that I am,
could pull me off course, away from Thy perfect will for me,
and take me to places that make me shudder with shame?
How can it be, Most High God, that I who sing worshipful anthems to Thee with my tongue on Sunday could also engage it in glib gossip, caustic complaints and disgraceful dialogues the remaining week?

Dearest Father, I am ashamed of sin caused by my hurtful tongue, and I have displeased Thee.
Yet you hold me by Thy righteous right hand. I am Thine and You will never let me go.
The sweetness of Thy forgiveness delights my tongue.
The psalms and hymns and spiritual songs have been restored.
May the heart of Christ form words of compassion for every person I meet.
May my tongue confess Christ only always, so that eternal praises may begin today. Amen.

Has this prayer helped you, tearful Sisters—even in a small way? I need to pray this often—only always.

Blessings to you,
Mimi