What Are You Saying?

1. Read James 3:1-12. James uses several analogies (bits in horses’ mouths, rudders on ships, a small spark). Which analogy resonates with you the most and why?
2. Share an example from your life when your words had either a positive or negative impact on your own life or on someone else's.
3. Pastor Pete mentioned John Stott's comment that "the tongue is not just evidence of spiritual maturity, but also the means for spiritual maturity." How does controlling your tongue help you to grow spiritually and in what ways have you experienced this?
4. Consider some examples in the sermon about how the tongue is closely connected to our internal desires, such as the desire to be in the know, feel superior, or be the center of attention. What are some ways that our words reveal the condition of our hearts, and what kind of speech might indicate negative desires?
5. What steps can we take to be more discerning and careful with our words, especially in conversations?

Prayer + Practice:

Come up with three new go-to phrases you can use to practice building other people up. Write them down and practice saying them. Ask God to give you opportunity to build up other people. Then come up with some phrases you can practice to shut down gossip or other speech that might hurt others.

Good morning. Happy Father's day to you. It's good to be with you. I had a great time last weekend in San Antonio, actually, about 140 coaches and their wives. It was a great time.

And some of the work that I put in for that will be something that we will talk about in the fall. So it was great. I was going to do a Father's Day message today, but because we have, because we're off next Sunday, I got to get through James three before the end of June. So I have two talks left to do that. I'm going to spend some time right now on three, one to twelve, and then we'll have to deal with the last paragraph on the 30th.

So, you know, that's what's all happening with us. And we're going through James, and we're in chapter three, and we're about to take a second pass, really, at his words about the tongue, which is at the center of the letter. But it's also central to the life of faith is what we're learning and.

And the spiritual maturity that James is calling us to. I think maybe a way to illustrate what James is talking about. And I got the idea from John Stott. He kind of used it a little bit differently. But John Stott, in his commentary on James, I thought it was really good because he talked about it was actually a lighting panel he used, but take an electrical panel, if you will, and you got all these circuits, and each one of them run a certain amount of lights within a circuit.

And so if you looked at the mess of all of that, you got your whole life here. So imagine your whole life is on these circuits, right? You have a relational part of your life that would be one circuit. You have a financial part of your life that would be one circuit. You have an emotional side of your life.

James has talked about. That's a circuit on its own circuit, and you can mess with any one of those circuits. And when we're thinking about our spiritual lives, all these things come to mind. Mental, physical, they're all on their own circuit. And what James is actually saying is, the tongue is the master switch.

This affects them all. You can shut any circuit. It doesn't affect the other circuits, but you shut this one, every single circuit is affected. That's essentially what James is getting across. And that is amazing.

And I'll show you. We could prove that we all stumble in many ways. All the circuits. All your circuits. We stumble in every single one of those circuits.

But if anyone doesn't stumble in what he says he's a perfect man. So somehow what I say affects every other circuit in my life.

That's overwhelming.

In fact, look, you're able to bridle your whole body, everything else.

So there's no way to progress spiritually without being aware of the tongue's connection to everything. So any thought and work on your mouth is all encompassing. And John Stott said this, the tongue is not just evidence of spiritual maturity, it's the means for spiritual maturity. And I will tell you, that's unexpected.

James is saying something here very unique. No other part of your life, no other part of your body is given that much weight.

So we tend to choose actions over words. We say it, we've got a saying, actions speak louder than words. James is challenging that because James thinks works or words are actions.

So we've got to come to grips with James seriousness about this. And admittedly, it is not easy. But remember this verse that he says, tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. It's set uniquely among our members, centrally. And it stains the whole body.

It sets on fire the entire course of life, and it's set on fire by hell. There's no other part of your body, no other circuit in your spiritual existence. Given that much power or weight, this kind of description, it's just not found anywhere, not to this degree. So I jotted down just a number of thoughts just about that. It's devastating.

Represents the whole world of evil. I mean, when you think about the universe of evil, tongue is at the centers. It's positioned, like right in the right focal point as the gateway for all evil. It stains and inflames all other areas of life and limb and sort of leaves its mark of defilement everywhere. And this little word for the course of life, this is, let's see, the entire set's on course, is the word for wheel.

Like this thing just keeps turning and it just keeps going. And even as you age, your mouth keeps running. Like, age doesn't slow it down, doesn't slow down naturally. It just keeps on rolling. And it's associated, obviously, with hell, so it's associated with misery and evil, and it's destructive.

So no other part of the body is given this central role.

But you almost feel like James has to convince us of this. And I think that's very true. That's why he talks about the. The disproportionate size of the tongue. That's where he talks about horses and chips and sparks.

And this is sort of what your life is like. Your life is like a horse with a lot of energy and power, and it has a lot of force in the world, and you gotta be able to tame it. You do that with the tongue. Your life's like a ship. It's gonna encounter all kinds of external winds and storms.

And when you're going through hell, somehow you've got to be able to steer that ship. And your life's like a fire. It's like a. You can provide a lot of warmth with fire, but you can also just destroy things. And he's describing your life.

And these things you can unleash good are evil, or you can take control of your life.

That's the image. And it's just this tiny little thing makes all the difference in the world. So there's this internal issue. Like a horse has all this internal power, then there's external forces happening to you, and you have to manage your tongue and all those dynamics. You got to keep the fires small and manageable and useful in your life.

That's a task.

And James will say it's like an untamed beast. It's like you have brought a wild animal into your home. And while you might be able to comment every now and then, you know, we've seen the shows where somebody takes in a wild animal, tiger or something like that, and then it eats them, or a bear, because it just turns savage in a moment. It can turn savage in a moment, and there's just no way to get around that. And James will use the word for restless, restless, evil.

And the word restless is the same word he uses in chapter one for double minded. And this is where James is probably, this is what's guiding James to the tongue. If you really want to have a pure spiritual life, you cannot do that without managing the tongue. And this is what's driving James to the tongue. It's not the tongue driving James to the spiritual life.

You think about what you want in the spiritual life, and you can't help but talk about the tongue. And that's why he talks about being double minded, because your faith isn't real, it's not mature, it's not anything life giving if the tongue isn't managed. And for James, this is the worst thing about the tongue. This is the worst possible scenario about your tongue, is that it reveals that you might not be spiritually, might not be spiritual at all. And for James, that's the worst case.

And so he uses those illustrations. Geological and agricultural springs and fountains don't bring forth bitter water.

A freshwater spring doesn't bring forth bitter water agriculturally. Trees and vines all bring forth the fruit that is appropriate to them. And these are, again, life sustaining realities. In the ancient near east. You had to have pure water like always and everywhere.

And food, you know, trees. So James bad sources produce. They're just destructive. No life to them.

And I think he illustrates it the best in that text here where he says with it, our tongues getting at that double mindedness. This is the heart of the text. This is the most important verse in it, we bless our Lord and father, our creator or our creator and our redeemer. With it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing, my brothers.

These things ought not to be. This is about as hard as you can say what James says. And he actually uses a word here. These things ought not to be. And I don't ever really give you, I don't ever give you greek words because, I mean, what good is it?

You don't know what the world. But this is the word. This is the word he uses here, and it's not used anywhere else in the. And if you transliterated it, it would be cray, as if to say cray crayon. It's absolutely cray cray that you bless God.

You're batty. You're insane. That's where we get the phrase cray cray, right? No, it's not.

And so James is saying, for those trying to be bothered, you want to be both. Not only are you insane, your faith is bunk.

And this is the heart of the matter for James, how you relate to God and how you get along with people, that's everything. Isn't that what your faith is really about? It's the core of. And we have to do both. So James is telling the person who has real faith, you can't just talk about God and love him in a certain way and then have all these horrific sort of dynamics going on with people.

On the one hand, you lift God up. By the way, this is the highest and the lowest forms of speech. The highest form of speech is to be able to praise God, to have God in its rightful place in your life, and you verbalize it. The worst thing you can do with your mouth is curse. And the idea of curse here isn't cuss.

It's the idea of cutting someone off. It's not just even demeaning. It has the idea of consigning to hell, dehumanize with our language.

For James, this is the ultimate double mindedness and the one to bless God necessitates that you love people verbally, talking about verbal holiness because they're made in the likeness of God, which we could spend a long time dealing with. There's no higher view of a human being then they are made in the likeness of God. There's no higher argument for morality for why you treat humans well. James going all the way back to Genesis one, and he's likening us to God in this personal and interpersonal and relational, and words matter in both relationships. I need words to relate to God, and I need words to relate to people.

And so James is saying, you gotta have words. That's how he's likening us to God. In this text, what does it mean to be in the likeness of God? In this text, it means you use words. God uses words.

That's how we have a relationship with him.

Everything, creation and redemption, all word and communication. That's how it is with us. Jordan Peterson, in his book the Twelve Rules, has a great section on conversation. And I love his line. And he says, the human capacity for language is a door into the divine, and he could not be more right.

So words are life. God expresses himself in words as we do, and it's how he relates to us, his words, how we relate to him, his words, how we relate to each other's words.

Now we're going to talk a little bit about community, but I didn't want to do it today because I already have too much. And when we get to chapter four, we'll still be in this theme and it'll come out then. So today we've got to look at some different stuff. But it's interesting. I think you'd be worth asking, and you might even think it, if the tongue is so significant, and it's the reason it's significant is because he represents what's in the heart.

Then you ask, if the heart is the main issue, why is he focusing on the tongue? And there's good reason for that. But I wanted to show you a proverb real quick. We're going to look at a few. The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious.

So there is something about what's in the heart that comes out in the speech. We get that connection. And what you have in HebRew, especially if you'Re reading proverbs, you'll see this all the time. And I love the proverbs for it. It'll say, it'll focus on your eyes, it'll focus on your feet, it'll focus on your hands, obviously, your tongue, your ears, it tends to place evil in body parts.

And because in Hebrew thinking, in the Hebrew Wisdom, I can either change my heart to change my speech, or I can start to change my speech to change my heart. It works both Ways. All right. So if you got a problem with lust in your eyes, proverbs will center that at your eyes and say, well, one of the things you ought to start doing is watch what you're looking at. You start watching what you're looking at, it'll start to change your heart a little bit.

Or you could just say, I've got to figure out how to love people and not use them kind of a thing. So you could go both ways. So when we're talking, practically speaking, yeah, there are some things you could do with your mouth that will affect your heart, but there are also some heart things that you gotta think about that sort of reflect your speech.

For instance, your mouth gives your heart away. Your mouth will give away that you're not very humble or secure in who you are, and you will use words to lift yourself up or to bring other people down because you're insecure. And all that reveals is, is an insecure heart. Or that, or you don't have a, there's not a lot of wisdom in there. You don't have a heart that is trying to find ways to be useful to others in what you say.

Because you could offer a lot of counsel if your heart had wisdom in it, but that would mean you'd have to be seeking it. That's what the next paragraph's about. Well, just loving, you're just not a loving person. And it comes out in your mouth. You don't try to protect people.

You don't try to care for people with your mouth at all. That's just not a loving heart or at the center of it all. It's just truth. It's amazing how much non truth we seem to be able to live with, because we're not willing to define reality at all. And so we'll lie like nothing, or we'll just be able to live, and we're comfortable living in a world that doesn't even exist, whether it's ours or somebody else's.

So there are some obvious heart issues that drive what we say, and you'll see them come together here in a couple things. Because with the remaining time that we have, I wanted to just be as practical as we could. In some ways that will differ from chapter four. And so this is what I would say for those of us in here who just read that text, hearing what James is saying, there's a lot. I thought about this for a couple of weeks now.

How many ways could we talk about? Let's figure out how we together can be better with our words.

You could take 100 approaches to this. So I've just narrowed it down to a few. And here's the thing. I'm going to give you a lot of material. At least grab one, one thing and say, yeah, I'm going to make that a spiritual priority.

All right. In fact, that's my first point. You have to make your words a matter of a spiritual matter. That's, I think, what James is saying. And there's a great psalm, psalm 141.

David prays, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. And here's what he talks about. How do you. You know, so you can set a guard over your mouth?

Okay. You can do some things with your speech, and you can also keep watch, or. I'm sorry. Don't let your heart incline. This is where David puts them both together.

Your heart seems to be inclined or drawn to some stuff that it shouldn't be drawn to see. Don't let my heart incline to any evil to busy myself love this phrase with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity and let me not eat of their delicacies. This is a beautiful way to take this whole idea that James is talking about and put it in a song. So let me watch my mouth, but I gotta make sure that my heart isn't drawn to unhealthy things. And you can see there's an internal part to this.

Internally, my heart is drawing to things, and then externally, who am I keeping company with? And is there some company externally I gotta avoid, or I need to be better prepared when I sit down with you? Cause your mouth runs too much, and it makes my mouth wanna run too much. And why am I attracted to that? Why is my heart drawn to what's being said?

And, you know, then there's this sort of. I love this phrase. Proverbs uses it a lot. So David is processing out loud with God. Does he need to ask for help about his mouth?

And he's right on track with, I don't want to be drawn to some of these conversations. And what kind of inner longings do you have? Like, think about these inner longings that you might have. I just jotted down a few. I love to be in the know.

I got to be in the know how about if you just had a heart that said, I don't really care to know. I'm tired of knowing. Aren't you tired of knowing? I don't want to know. You got to have this heart that's just got to be in the know and it draws you anywhere.

Something's being said that's just a little off, you love it and your heart's drawn to it. Or you could because, and partly because your heart loves to feel superior. Oh, the more people that blow it, the better person I am. You don't even know. That dynamic's working all the time, but it's working.

Or you have to be the focus of attention. You have to be the one who knows, and that's where you get your identity from. Oh, ask her. She'll know. Ask him.

He'll know. And you like being the know.

So then you also have certain company or social settings that you get in. All of us get in certain settings where we know things are going to be said and should or shouldn't be said. And I think some of those settings we might just have to get out of. I don't know what they are, but the other ones, we just have to be much better equipped when we get to them. You get to that certain part of the family when you go to their house, you're dead meat.

If you go to, I don't know, it could be anything. But he calls them delicacies. It's almost like James is using this picture. And it happens a lot in proverbs of like a diet. You know how, you know how for some of us, if you're like, if you have a sweet tooth, I don't have a sweet tooth, but if you have a sweet tooth, I have a salt tooth.

I think all my teeth are salty. But if you like. But anything that's a treat for you, you just, like, you just can't wait to have it, you know? And if you're trying to, if you're thinking about what you eat at all, you have to say no to certain things you eat. And the psalmist is saying, yeah, you have to say no to certain things, things you're willing to hear.

Yeah, that'd be really tasty. But I can't be hearing that. I don't need those verbal calories. I don't need those audible calories or auditory calories, whatever, because gossip, just so tasty.

Throwing somebody under the bus, it's tasty. I watched a couple days ago, came out in 2020. Lance Armstrong, 30 for 30. I'd watched a few other ones because I'm usually on summer break when. When the Tour de France happens.

I watched all seven of those races and I fell in love with him. I just loved. I loved hearing. I loved when you hear him talk, like in this 30 for 30 about what was going on and what he was doing, it's like watching a 48 hours mystery. People's lives were absolutely ruined because of the lies, the deceit.

Someone even took their own life because of it. And here he is trying to describe the devastation that came from the lies that had to be covered up and the slander that had to be thrown around in order to protect himself.

I mean, there were times I almost wanted to shut it off because I just couldn't tolerate it. I just almost couldn't believe it.

That's what we're talking about here. There was no physical issues at all, but the devastation. His whole life ruined and many others lives ruined. So the first thing I think psalm 141 is telling us is, you've got to make this a spiritual matter. You have to be talking to God about what you're talking about.

And this is James's whole point. If you care about how your heart is drawn and what it's drawn to, then you're going to have to focus on some of the stuff that you say. So there's some heart issues here and there's some very practical external issues there. So the first one is you got to make it a spiritual matter, and it's very possible that you haven't done that. I don't think it's intuitive.

So thank you. Pretty sure David wrote this. Thank you. The second one I think proverbs teaches us is don't say so much. So how do you help your mouth a little bit?

One of them is just don't say so much. And here's two proverbs on that. When words are many, transgression is not lacking. But whoever restrains his lips is wise. All right?

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge. He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool keeps silent. Who keeps silent is considered wise. And when he closes his lips, he's deemed intelligent.

So there is a sense in which, you know, you could just say less words. It's just the law of averages. All right? You're less likely to say something dumb if you use less words. But it's not just less words because we've got to speak words.

I mean, life goes around, relationship with God. You got to have words. Okay. But there is something I think that is saying here is there has to be some ways that we limit what we're willing to talk about. So that's what I think the word restraint just has this idea.

Enough with the just saying. I'm just saying. Yeah, just don't. That would be what James would say. Just don't.

Or you didn't hear it from me. Good God, stop saying that.

You know you didn't hear from me. Well, I wish I hadn't.

Right.

Not everything you think has to be said is what I think the proverbs is saying. I mean, there ought to be significant times in your life. Significant times, I think, in a day or a week, because it happens to me that often where I go, I don't think I'm going to say that.

I don't think I'm going to say that. In other words, you have significant times where you bite your tongue and you know you're biting it. You just know that's not going to be said. Not every opinion or experience you have has to be shared. And this is the reason why this is difficult, because our social interaction with one another is through these words, and it's how we get to know each other.

Like, when you're hurting, I want to know why you're hurting. If I'm hurting, you want to know why I'm hurting. And sometimes the reason we're hurting is because somebody hurt us. And we're going to talk about this more in James, chapter four. But I think as a community of people who rely on words, who need words, we have to figure out how we're going to communicate with one another without crossing some of these lines.

And that's a real challenge. Can I express my hurt to you without throwing somebody under the bus? Or is this just a hurt I just absorbed so that nobody else has to hear about it? I think we justify a lot of the things we talk about because we're just sharing our lives. And this is a real hard line between sharing your life and not throwing somebody under the bus, because most of the things we share about somebody throwing us under the bus, being dumb or it's a real hard balance.

But you can't be silent. I mean, think about this, Adam. In Genesis three, since James goes back there, said nothing to his wife when she said, let's eat from the tree. I don't know. I think that would have been a good time to speak.

Please don't be silent there, Adam. And so I will say to you, dads, I'll say to you, fathers, there's some things that have to be said, you say them.

And obviously there's a lot of things that don't need to be said, but there's a lot of things that could be said, make a difference. On the other hand, Eve's have longest conversation in Genesis one to three, she has with a snake.

That conversation should have been cut off a long time before it finished. Why am I talking to you? Say that more in your life. Why am I even talking to you? You're killing me.

All right, we'll move on from that. One. Three. I'll give you a third one. And I'm only going to spend a second on this.

Don't listen to it when it comes your way. This is hard. It is, but notice. But proverbs does speak to it. It's not like it's not something that we should at least consider.

An evil doer listens to wicked lips, and the liar gives ear to mischievous tongue. So there's a certain amount of listening that has to stop. Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets. Therefore, do not associate with a babbler. So don't.

Don't even associate with a babbler. Don't listen. Or maybe even associate. These are two pretty. This speaks to your company, you know?

This speaks to your company.

Some thought has to be given to who I listen to and who I associate with.

And I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this because this is a really hard thing to do when you're sitting with somebody and they're about to bring something up. But I do think there's something you could say more often, and that is I don't want to know. You don't have to throw anybody under the bus who's about to spill something. But you could just say, I don't want to know. Start to say that more.

I don't want to know. And then what will happen? And I think this is a beautiful thing when you're actually happy that you don't know. No, not that. You walk away like this.

I need some coffee right now. I gotta have a cigarette because I didn't get that information and I don't think I'm gonna live. And you break out in a rash, and you gotta take a benadryl to go to bed.

Well, you're actually comfortable not knowing.

All right, we'll leave that one. Number four. This is probably my favorite. It's near and dear to my heart. Be more protective in your conversations.

Be more protective.

Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats. A matter separates close friends. Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets. But he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps the thing covered.

Listen, there isn't a one of us in here who couldn't have somebody say something bad about us today.

Not a one of us.

And one of the greatest gifts you can give somebody is to just not unveil their mistake or their stupidity or a failure just to cover it up. I just imagine just a big blanket going around a person and you just say, you're covered. That's what love does. We do that for our spouses. Of course, I've had to learn over the years, even in joking.

I have to be really careful in company to not highlight something that may not. That may just. It could be a nothing thing, but it's not the kind of thing you tell somebody. And it could be very, very simple, like they never get up before seven.

That may be very true of you, and that's not necessarily an evil thing. But doesn't it sound a little bit like. Does it sound like I'm a lazy person? Did you just call me lazy? I say this to my grandkids all the time.

They'll say something. Did you just call me lazy? Because that's how it sounds. And even if I was, I certainly don't want you announcing that to everybody.

So you gotta be able to keep a secret. Guess what I found out? We're finding crap out all the time, so let it stop with you. Absorb it, you know? Do you have a good sense of what should be kept confidential?

I don't need somebody to tell me, hey, keep that between us. Don't you have an ear for. I don't think that ought to be said to anybody else.

Get an ear for that sometimes I'll verbally assure people, just so you know, I wasn't told to keep it confidential. But I'll say to them, just so you know, that stays here.

I'll say that out loud and then I'll also follow it up very often with this line. If you want people to know you tell them. They're not going to say they heard it from Pete.

All of you would kill me. There's a lot of things I know that can never come out of my mouth.

I cannot actually think of a greater gift, verbally, maybe. Besides, I mean, on the negative side of things than not revealing something that you could reveal about me.

I have a favorite story, but I'll save it for time.

The other thing I would say, and I'll just do this quick, be more positive and more helpful with your speech. Don't stir up strife. That would be number five.

Proverbs has a number of things, you know, feed people when you speak. Be truthful when you speak. Be healing when you speak. I came across this little page right here. It says, it's called the word fitly spoken, and it's 40 words of praise, or it's actually 75 ways to say good for you or to praise somebody.

And what I took away from it was, and I've had it a long time in my files, was. Here's, here's some new phrases that you might incorporate into your vocabulary that are not there. Like, some people have a really hard time praising others. You just can't get it out of your mouth. So come up with three new phrases that actually praise other people and practice doing them.

And maybe say to yourself, I gotta say these things three times a day. These two or three lines come out of my mouth, and he's got a bunch of them in here. You could come up with them yourself, but just so you can be more positive, these phrases never come. Ask your spouse. What don't I say a lot?

Well, you never say thank you or you never say please, or you never say good job.

Come up with some phrases you don't typically say and start saying. And then my final thoughts here are, application. I'm just going to run through this, and this is just a little bit more very on the practical side. So something I started doing is, when I'm brushing my teeth, that's the time that I pray, God help me. Watch my tongue.

I just started. Just a new practice. I just started. I'm like, how can I help myself in this? When I'm brushing my teeth, that's my quiet time for my tongue.

So when you're brushing your teeth, go, I don't just need a clean teeth. This tongue of mine is destroying me. Okay. In your quiet times, ask God for help, like David does in psalm 141. Literally, God, I need some help with this number three.

If you're really serious, ask your closest friends to stop you when you're about to say something you know you shouldn't. That's how you know, by the way, you're really serious.

Hey, honey, don't say that.

And like I just said, incorporate some new statements into your conversations. Like, I'll keep that to myself. That stays here. I don't want to know. Just put those in there.

And then the fifth one, really practically, just get a life.

Get a life. Have something to talk about. Worth talking about this is important, and I think the proverbs deal with it. I just don't have time to go through it. Like, if all your joy and excitement comes from what other people are doing, you got a problem.

You're not living enough. You're not getting out enough.

Start getting in the 10,000 steps. Move. Do something worth talking about. And I think, not just get a life, but get a spiritual life if you don't. Because maybe you're not blessing God.

Maybe you don't have a relationship with God that's healthy. You don't bless him enough, as James would say. And you don't bless others enough. If you get a spiritual life, you want to bless God and you want to bless others. I think it's significant to just consider that at the triumphal entry when everybody was praising and everybody said, why are you guys praising the Pharisees anyway?

Why are you all praising Jesus, sitting on this donkey riding into town? And I think Jesus words, if they don't, these rocks will cry out.

Okay, well, does that mean God can take hearts of stone and even tongues of stone and give them words to relate to God better and words to treat others better? Because maybe your tongue of spell, you need to speak more to God and to others. All right. All right. Let me pray.

Father, just give us life in both our heart and our tongue. Where our hearts are rock hard, where our tongues either get stuck, they don't move. They have no God to praise.

You can open. You can open hearts. You can change speech. I ask you to do that for folks in this room. Those who have nothing to say to you, give them the words.

Those of us who struggle to say good things to others, give us those words as well. We want a spiritual life that honors you and blesses people.

In Jesus name. Amen.