THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2011
James 3:2 For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
I have some very dear friends of mine that live in the Altai region of Siberia, Russia that I have visited several times. We work together with Teen Challenge helping people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. They visited us in America for almost a month one summer, now when they come visit or when I go to visit we have a translator to help us communicate but there are short periods of time during our visits when the translator is not around so we will communicate the best we can. It looks like we are playing charades when their is no one to translate and so we laugh and really have a good time time without being able to talk. It really is hilarious.
There was a time when they were visiting with us I brought my friend Genya squirrel hunting with me ( with no translator) while we were hunting and communicating the best we could I realized that during our visits we have spent a lot of time together and have not come close to offending each other at all, not even thinking to myself I wonder what he meant by what he just said, or he sounded upset, etc.... and we definately were not able to slander or gossip about anyone. Why? Because we couldn't communicate.
Oh how awesome relationships in our lives would be if our communication was limited so that people would not get offended because of gossip, being a busy body, and slandering one another.
1Timothy 2:2 tells us....... lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
Lets be careful to limit our conversation so that we do not offend our friends and family because the truth is our tongue causes the most damage to relationships and its very difficult to use that same tongue to repair whats been damaged.
Gary
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