Tonguezilla!
Tonguezilla!
Maybe it was the pizza, maybe not, but I had the craziest dream.
It was set like a 1950s B horror film. Remember The Blob, The Thing, Creature From The Black Lagoon? I had a scary dream about a fierce creature, a thing, a monster so hideous, so destructive it seemed able to set the world on fire.
Set to the sound of a woman shrieking a piercing scream, the fear was palpable as I heard the unrelenting pounding thud of the approach of a hideous monster rising from the shroud of an eerie mist.
The army had been called out and bravely tried to shoot the creature but alas, to no avail. Tanks were crushed till the order to fall back was shouted. The air force attacked but planes were neutralized was alone fling of drool. The beast seemed unstoppable. And then the clouds broke and I saw it in its hideous glory:
Tonguezilla!
It was a roving tongue that had escaped its owner’s mouth. It would stop and wag itself furiously giving anyone and anything a brutal tongue-lashing! Tonguezilla was on a mindless rampage and we seemed defenseless, as we were unable to stop it from releasing its relentless reign of death.
All means of forces were exhausted. And the tongue-lashing continued wrecking havoc on the landscape for who could escape the madness, the unbridled fury of Tonguezilla?
Tonguezilla was a terror, a mindless beast capable of tongue-tying all in its path. It had to be stopped, but how? How do you tame the terrifying Tonguezilla?
And in a movement of inspiration born of desperation, I yelled out, “There is but one way to stop Tonguezilla. We have to corral it back into its owner’s mouth. Only if that mouth will stay shut - opening only in wisdom to speak life - only then can we cage the mighty Tonguezilla!”
And I woke up.
Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matthew 12:34. According to Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” In James 3:6, the Bible describes an untamed tongue as “a fire, a world of iniquity“. Two verses later it is even called a “deadly poison.”
The Bible describes many kinds of tongues: lying, flattering, proud, tale bearing, and cursing. As self-control is part of the fruit of the Spirit, we each need to learn to tame this inner monster.
“Like a club and a sword and a sharp arrow is a man who bears false witness against his neighbor,” Proverbs 15: 18. A club can injure up close, a sword a bit further, and a sharp arrow can injure from afar. The tongue can inflict great damage or it can speak forth healing words of life.
Does your tongue speak forth words of life, or wreck havoc with words of death?
“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.” (James 3:2)
Bryan Hupperts © 2009
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