The Door of My Lips

I try to regularly read one or more of the Psalms, usually in the morning hours before things get busy.  I don’t always get there, but it’s a goal.  Today, I happened upon Psalm 141.  In that Psalm, the writer is asking God to keep him from doing evil.  Verse 3 of that passage sort of jumped off of the page toward me.  Here’s what it says out of the Christian Standard Bible translation:  “LORD, set up a guard for my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips.”

Do you see what the writer is saying?  The literal vision of this is of God Himself being the guard posted at the door of his lips…the door representing the passageway through which the words are spoken.  The writer is asking God to not let anything “through the door” of his lips that is not appropriate or proper.

That literal vision may not be as far-fetched as one might think.  If we are Christians…if we are children of God…God Himself dwells in us by his Holy Spirit.  We are vessels, so to speak, for God’s Spirit.  And if that indeed is true, then it would not be a stretch to imagine God’s Spirit at the door, or opening of our mouth, allowing nothing unwholesome to come from it.

In fact, Paul talks about this “unwholesomeness,” and connects it with the Spirit of God in Ephesians 4, starting with verse 29.  Listen to what he says.

“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.  Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Grieving the Holy Spirit of God is right in the middle of a paragraph about wholesome speech, kindness and compassion.  As Christians, we need God’s Spirit at the (almost) literal doorway of our speech.  And we need that same Spirit guarding what we type in social media or otherwise write.  It is so easy to speak or write before we think.  It is such an easy thing to say something that, once said can never be recalled.  And with social media, what we write there is out there permanently for the whole world to see from now on.

I had never before thought about God being a guard stationed at the “door” of my lips.  I must say that when I think of it that way, it is much easier to just keep quiet if I can’t say something beneficial, and it is much easier to think about what I am about to say before those words get past my lips.

We’ve all been guilty of saying or typing something we later wished we could recall.  Having God at the “door” of our lips means that we won’t have to worry about that anymore…that if we let Him vet our speech, we will say or write nothing that is inappropriate or unkind.  It’s only when we tell Him that we no longer need Him that we tend to get into trouble with our speech.

As we continue in this self-isolation of the COVID 19 pandemic, let us be doubly careful that we allow God to guard the door of our lips…that we indeed be kind to one-another and forgive as God has forgiven us.  To do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Blessings…