Back home today and back to work. Work has not gotten better over the weekend. I am faced with some very tall demands. It isn’t a ton of work, it is just heavy work. I was telling Marianne tonight that I need to see this time as a place where I must operate in a mindset that I get to do my best and at the same time sit back and watch God work.
9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who were made in God’s likeness! 10 Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. These things, my brethren, ought not to be so. 11 Does a fountain send forth [simultaneously] from the same opening fresh water and bitter? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can a salt spring furnish fresh water. James 3:9-12 [AMP]
This is a super convicting passage when I think about the missteps I have had with my speech in regard to my kiddos or even co-workers in the past. Here I am in church praising God in both song and prayer; then turn around and completely lose my composure and spew poison from that same mouth that set out to glorify God days earlier. The other thing in the first verse is the description of those we ‘lose it’ with being those who were made in God’s likeness (imago dei). In verse 10 James tells politely that ‘this should not be so’.
The comparison with fountain sending forth different types of water (fresh and bitter) or a fig tree bearing anything other than the fruit it naturally produces.