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Do you ever wonder how many words you speak per day? I read somewhere that  the average woman speaks around 5,000 words per day whereas the average male speaks around 2,000.  The amount of words we speak is not nearly a priority as the quality of the speech that proceeds from the mouth. Take for example what James says about the tongue, or the words that we speak:

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. James 3:9-12

It was very disconcerting to James that a follower of Christ could praise God in one breath and curse human beings in another. To him it was not a natural occurrence for anyone who says they are a follower of Jesus Christ.

You can examine scripture and clearly see the kind of speech that God condemns. Everything from gossip and slander to lying and complaining. Jesus even tells us in Matthew 12:34 that a person's speech is an indicator of what the person really loves, For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

OK, so here is a prayer that we can say every morning as we get up and set out on our daily adventure

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14

Weighing in on My Affliction

This is the second week of my affliction. You can read about it in a previous blog. Nothing has really changed. I have refused to read the book of Job during this time, but I caved in and read this...

 If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas— Job 6:2-3

It would be so easy to feel like Job. To feel the weight of my anguish, to let it control me. But I have a lot of hope because I know that it is only temporary. People recover from this thing. In my affliction I am reminded that there are people who don't have the hope that it will get better. I just learned about a friend of mine, a fellow pastor who has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gerigs Disease). If you know anything about ALS, there is little or no hope of getting better outside of God's intervention. His misery surely outweighs the sand of the seas. Pray for him, his name is Mark.

My Thorn in the Flesh

Our Mexico Team arrived home yesterday from a week of service. We built a house, hosted a VBS everyday, and we helped with other projects. It was an awesome trip and I will post some pixs later. Personally, all through the week I was having some physical difficulties, but I didn't think much of it. I had a pain behind my right ear and I couldn't hear out of my right ear. I thought it was just an infection and I would go to the doctor when I got home.  When we got back to San Diego things changed. That night (Friday) the right side of my face started to feel numb and the next morning I could not close my right eye. Also, I was off balance when I walked.  I still had the pain and the constant ringing in my ear so everybody on the team told me that I should go to Urgent Care, so I did. The doctor diagnosied it as Bell's Paulsy, but he thought I should go to the hospital emergancy to be sure. So, I went the emergancy. They did an x-ray, a CT scan, and blood work. The doctor concluded that it was Bell's Paulsy, although he was not sure about the burning pain down my neck. So he gave me some pills and prescriptions. Bell's Paulsy is the restriction of the facial nerve and cused by a viral infection. The recovery could be days, weeks or months determined by the amount of damage to the nerve. The worst part of this is my eye won't close and I drool when I eat. Not a pretty sight.