{"id":185,"date":"2023-12-16T08:51:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T13:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/?p=185"},"modified":"2023-12-16T08:51:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T13:51:57","slug":"bridling-my-tongue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/?p=185","title":{"rendered":"Bridling My Tongue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Bridling My Toungue<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>James 1:26 <em>If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man\u2019s religion is worthless.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tongue story time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m a little late this morning because I had to patch things up with my lovely bride of over 45 years. We\u2019re strong on the big picture concepts but believe me, we both have had to do lots of forgiving along the way.<br><br>I know y\u2019all never have to deal with this but here\u2019s the story anyway. \ud83d\ude09<br><br>The warning signs: My heart jumped for joy when we were preparing for a whole family to be baptized. Taking the excitement to even a higher level, my cohort and completer came in, shepherding a throng of God\u2019s children from her Sunday school class. She has a deep calling and commitment to these youngsters, weathering constant trials for the occasional joys of seeing their little lights coming on. If I were the enemy, scenes like this would drive me to attack as quickly as possible.<br><br>The script: Later, as we left the parking lot, we started discussing items and processes related to other ministries we\u2019re involved with. She explained what she intended to do. I, being wise and experienced, shared a suggestion or two. She, being also wise and experienced, dismissed the ideas. I, being an idiot, decided that she was being defensive. How dare she think I would criticize her on a personal level.<br><br>Of course, I made a point of driving that point home which, of course, led to the next level of escalation. We\u2019re both passionate about what we do so the temperature can get pretty high.<br><br>This is a script we follow often. I finally realized ( after 4.5 decades) that I could break the script by bridling my tongue. Up until now, I hadn\u2019t considered that \u201cmy ground\u201d was not worth defending! I\u2019ve no doubt there will be a new attack plan but I\u2019m taking this one off the table.<br><br>Father, give us wisdom to see when our tongue is undercutting our love!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bridling My Toungue James 1:26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man\u2019s religion is worthless. Tongue story time: I\u2019m a little late this morning because I had to patch things up with my lovely bride of over 45 years. We\u2019re strong&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/?p=185\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bridling My Tongue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[95,96,86,89,94],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devo","tag-bridle","tag-feelings","tag-james-126","tag-tongue","tag-wounds","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}