Politics and My Tongue!

Are you as shocked as I am these days to see what Godly women post on their Facebook pages?  It seems our current political climate has brought out the worst of what lies at our core, and I'm no better.  While I try to be careful not to hurt anyone with my words and actions, I can pass judgement, with the pound of my gavel on the bench of my own self-righteousness, with lightening speed.  I place myself in a position of thinking I know the motives or mind of those who say such-and-such and shake my head in disbelief at their carelessness, while tisking my tongue at their smallness.  All the while that very position of mine, condemns me.  Who do I think I am?  Do I have such a pure heart and mind as to place me above anyone else?  NO!!

I am realizing more and more that I am only responsible for my own words, my own actions and my own decisions.  Duh!  But not a truth lived out in the past.  The God of the angel armies is making it clearer and clearer that I am called to be an encourager to those around me.  I am NOT truth for anyone else - I can only be a vessel in which God's truth is lived out and revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit to a world whose moral compass is broken - and in many cases, this includes most of us church-folk.  My job is not to be in the seat of the Holy Spirit.  My job is to be a vessel that God can use to bless others.  I'm just an old cracked pot God has chosen to use, nothing more and nothing less.  I'm cracked because of my own flaws but in the hands of the Master, I have value and usefulness in the Kingdom.  I need to leave the Judgement seat for God!  How can a cracked pot think it can be the judge?   James 3:9 says:

"But the human tongue can be tamed by no man.  it is (an undisciplined, irreconcilable) restless evil, full of death-bringing poison.  With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who were made in God's likeness!  Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing.  These things my brethren, ought not to be so." (The Amplified Bible Version) 

So, during this political firestorm, I will not engage.  I will not hurl insults, make caddy remarks, or stand silently while ensuring my body language speaks for me, toward anyone across the political aisle.  They are not my foe.  I can have an opinion and share it in such a way that speaks for me personally without judgement, without crassness, and without guile.  I am determined to show love.  Otherwise, I am defiling the Imago Dei, the image of God, in both myself and of the one I speak against.  I will listen more than speak, and remain silent when my words can't be tempered.  Otherwise, I am striking a match and setting an entire forest ablaze because I didn't like the position of one elm!

Father God, I want the tongue I use to bless YOU, not to be defiled by me.  May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing and acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer!  Remove the poison from my words and let them become words of sweet encouragement.