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8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
-Psalm 32:8-9
Hold your tongue. Bite your lip. Sit on your hands. Hold on to your horses. These are colloquialisms that provide warning or self-regulation for us as we stand on the precipice of consequential speech or action. What is it that enables you to heed the advice? What functions as the filter strong enough to stop the toxic words that hatched in your brain, managed to escape, and are now marching toward your larynx? What constitutes the lure that hooks and reels them back into your brain’s dumpster?
Perhaps you managed to assimilate some measure of parental wisdom like Forrest Gump – “"Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them." It could be that you rely on your dogged-eared copy of, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Such resources are helpful, as far as they go, but something more is needed to engender the wisdom to behave, to pause before you speak words that could wound, to breathe before you act impulsively, to count the cost before you detonate. How wearisome is the friend, relative, or coworker around whom everyone must tiptoe, hoping to avoid the tripwire that will set them off! How emotionally exhausting for the person compelled to hold the reins on the combustible spouse! “Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.” Having learned from previous catastrophes, the psalmist challenges us to not be the mule, which is just another word for #&@.
Instead, the psalmist encourages us to be the lifelong student, drawing on the wisdom of the Scriptures, the warnings of the prophets, the light of God’s counsel; and with the Word made flesh, we add the teachings of the Gospels, the light of God’s Spirit, the lessons of the Epistle’s, and the tutelage of the church. We have the resources to guide us in ways that build up, rather than tear down. “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”
Grace and Peace,
Matt
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