“With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been make in God’s likeness.” James 3:9
You’ve been there. You’ve seen it. Perhaps you’ve participated in it. You may even have been the one to offer the information to the others. We commonly refer to such times as prayer requests. It’s our chance to be heard, to share with all of the listening ears at the table who did what to you and how they made you feel about it. Or worse, we air out the offender’s dirty laundry leaving them no chance to defend themselves because the person is not even there! All this is done in the name of prayer. Gossip prayers. Church ladies are best at it. Let’s gather together now for our time of “prayer”, yet the 30 minutes we devote to this time consists of talking about our problems as well as others and their issues, and we wrap it up with a “closing” prayer to blanket all the requests in 1 minute. And we wonder why our prayer lives appear stale. We question why we don’t hear from the Lord and sense Him moving in our lives. While we talk at each other and then talk at God, we give our hearts no time to be still and listen to His soft voice tugging at our hearts. This grieves the heart of God. Wouldn’t it be a novel idea if when we joined together for times of prayer, we actually spent that time praying? As you prayed out loud for the things going on in your life, your prayer partners would hear your requests while you prayed and know how to lift you up in prayer throughout the week. Can you imagine how powerful your prayer time would be if the entire time was spent in prayer? Think about it. Even prayer we’ve manipulated to satisfy our own purposes. This must change.
Today, we approach the ongoing battle of taming our tongues. Get ready, because we’re about to jump into some deep waters, and it may be convicting. You might be thinking, “Cherie, what in the world does the passage in James 3 have to do with prayer?” James 3 addresses our speech, and it rebukes any unholy uses of our tongues, the instrument given to us to be used for praising God. I don’t know about you, but I want God’s Word to challenge me and thus change me. I want to have the mentality that embraces God’s correction in my life.
There are certain passages in Scripture that we tend to frequent. You know, the ones about God’s love and His faithfulness. The stories we’ve learned from childhood about the goodness of God. It takes a mature heart to embrace the discipline and correction from God’s Word, a heart that is willing to admit error and desires to change. This passage in James 3:1-12 is one of those passages that will whip you into shape…if you let God have His way with you. It amazes me how in our depravity and sin, we manage to corrupt every good thing that God has given us. He gave us our tongue and the ability to speak to bring praise to His name. That is our primary purpose – to bring God glory! Yet, with the same mouth that we praise Him with on Sunday mornings, we tear others down with our destructive words. How can our prayer and praise be genuine when in the next moment, we use our instrument of praise for sinful purposes?
I come to you with this because this is an area of conviction for me. I am not in any way above this struggle, but I am broken over it…and not only in my own life but in the church. I want to see women rise up to fill the godly roles Christ has called them to. I want to see women loving each other well, thus exemplifying to a lost and hurting world that “church” is a safe place for them to be, the best place. We must overcome this! We must deny ourselves, zip our lips, and use our mouths for blessing. It doesn’t take much to set a forest on fire, and it only takes a few wrong, hurtful words to set ablaze our relationships. Choose to be aware of the impact your words have.
I want to close with a prayer; one that reflects the cry of my own heart, but one that I also pray over each of you.
Heavenly Father,
Break our hearts for what breaks yours. We want to love you. We desire to live lives that bring you glory. Help us to see that a crucial part in that process involves loving your people, not just in deed but in word as well. Teach us to tame our tongues and to not let unwholesome talk come out of our mouths. May our words give grace to those who hear. Convict us Lord in the moment when we open our mouths with evil intent. Stop us dead in our tracks, and keep us from spouting off words that will injure. May we become women who live as overcomers in this area! Make us more like you, Jesus.
Amen
What a powerful message. Our prayer time in small group is close to what you described, 30 (sometimes even 60) minutes of venting – and about 3 minutes of praying. As a group, we emphasize prayer time at home, have a prayer rotation for focused prayer, and even email out the prayer requests as reminders, but we have never dedicated a night to prayer. I have been learning so much about the Holy Spirit through Francis Chan’s book, Forgotten God and I am finding that there is so much in my life that has either become stale, or has never really gotten off the ground, including prayer. This precious ability to converse with my God is wasted daily. I look forward to sharing this with my group! Thanks!
Preach it sister!!! Cherie thank you for your courage in addressing this topic! I think all women have been involved in or been exposed to “gossip prayers.” Hopefully this abuse of God’s gift will stop and we will all begin to recognize it as soon as it rears up its ugly head. May we all have the courage to address it and turn to God in reverent prayer. Blessings on you!