Day 127: Muzzle the mouth

Today's Reading: Psalm 25, 29, 33, 36, 39

I said, "I will watch my ways
and keep my tongue from sin;
I will put a muzzle on my mouth..."

Psalm 39:1

A muzzle is a device that is placed over the snout of an animal to keep it from biting or otherwise opening its mouth.

The Psalmist proclaims, I will put a muzzle on my mouth. In Psalm 25, the Psalmist asks God to forgive the recklessness of his youth. These two concepts grabbed my attention.

Recklessness often has to do with the tongue. We allow those thoughts that fly through our brain to be expressed before we filter them. The filter of the frontal lobe is not highly developed until a young woman is 23 and a young man is 35. Hmmm....

Any of us who have lived through the teen years or who live with young adults certainly can appreciate the visual of a muzzle on the mouth. An outward disciplining device in place until an inward self discipline keeps the mouth from spewing 'word vomit' would certainly save a lot of trouble for any of us.

Though self muzzling should be a discipline most of us have down by the time we reach "true adulthood," some of us never embrace the restrictive concept. Our words snarl and snap at others. We hurt the ones we love and we really get out of control when our territory is challenged. We become rottweilers.

Remaining silent in the throes of threats and challenges to our self esteem is an incredibly difficult discipline to master. We tend to want to argue, prove our point, annihilate our enemy or bite the hand that is feeding us.

If we do not learn to muzzle it early in our lives, we suffer as do all around us. Words can cut to the marrow of those nearest and dearest around us. Words, once spoken, can never be retracted.

Our Example stood beaten and bound before those who would destroy him. He could have sent down legions to destroy them with one word from his mouth.

But he muzzled the mouth and instead spoke seven words to his Father.

And saved the world...