Sometimes, I wish my words came with a fishing pole so I could reel them back in when I thought better of them.
I had one of those moments this week. I thoughtlessly said something to a friend and immediately wished I could take it back.
But the words were out there, declaring their unintended message before I even realized how they sounded. So, when I read Psalm 19:14 a short time later, it resonated in a fresh way.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Yahweh, my rock, and my redeemer.
(WEB)
Words—whether spoken out loud or merely pondered in silence—have weight and impact.
So like the Psalmist, I want all my words to be pleasing to God —both the ones that come out of my mouth and the ones that circle around in my mind.
Maybe you feel the same way.
If you’re with me, I believe Psalm 19 can help us. It shares three ways we can partner with God in pursuing more God-pleasing words (both in our thoughts and in our speech).
Practice humble prayer.
In verse 14, David doesn’t merely express his desire to people. He speaks his words directly to God, asking for His help in prayer.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Yahweh…,” he says.
You know, it’s actually empowering to realize we can’t manage something on our own…because this leads us to ask for God’s help and to rely on His power, which is always sufficient.
So if, like me, your words and thoughts sometimes fall short of God’s loving, pleasing way, just get down on your knees and ask for His help.
Ask His Spirit to take control of your thinking and your speaking and trust Him to transform them with His powerful grace.
Practice humble prayer.
Cultivate a tuned-in thought-life
In the first 11 verses of this Psalm, David speaks of the messages proclaimed by God’s creation and by His holy, written word.
“The heavens declare the glory of God,” he says in verse 1 and “Yahweh’s law is perfect, restoring the soul,” he later proclaims in verse 7.
Among the many messages competing for our focus each day, these are two worth tuning into:
- first and foremost, the Words of God in Scripture,
- and, second, the messages of people, things and circumstances that point us to the glory and goodness of God (with or without words).
The reality is that what we listen to most, determines what we think about most.
And what we think about most, spills into our speech and actions.
So we would do well to be selective listeners, intentionally tuning into God’s truth and presence and lowering the volume on everything else.
I definitely don’t do this perfectly. But I can tell you from a few grace-fueled victories that the more we take in and mull over God’s truth and goodness, the more our thinking, responding and living really do change for the better.
So how might you practice turning your focus to God’s truth and looking for glimmers of God’s glory as you go through the day today?
Creation points to Him and so do the people around us.
Plans that succeed and those that fall through can both lead us to His feet if we let them. And when we pick up our Bibles or recite a verse learned long ago, His Word can lead us to right thinking, right words and right places.
Cultivate a thought-life that tunes-in to God’s voice and looks for His goodness everywhere.
Speak mindfully.
I wonder if David’s meditation on creation’s speech made him want to be more intentional with his own speech. I know it did me.
David said that even though the sky had no audible voice or language, it spoke knowledgeably and loudly about God’s glory.
And it made me wonder: what are my words saying to others about God?
Are they proclaiming His love and patience? His purity and justness?
Or are they muddying up someone’s view of God with my own shortcomings, like impatience and self-focus?
As Christians, people often look to us to see what our God is like. So the words we speak (and the wordless messages we proclaim with our lives) matter a great deal.
And while this can be an intimidating realization, it doesn’t have to be. It just needs to lead us back to where we started: humble prayer.
We can’t wrangle our words into perfection and we can’t paint a worthy picture of Jesus with our lives unless His Spirit helps us. But His Spirit will help us!
He can even help us the split second it takes to open our mouths mid-conversation. He can stop us from speaking words we can’t reel back.
Our part is just to seek His help and His glory in it all.
May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be full of the goodness of God.
This devotion is based on one of the Scriptures from my reading plan: “Summer Soundtrack” on the Psalms. To receive a copy of the reading plan (and future reading plans), sign up for the email list below. Hope you’ll follow along!
©2024 Paige K. Burhans
Scriptures taken from the World English Bible. Public Domain.
