Now, before you ask me to tell my story about James the tall, dark, and handsome fireman who I met after he saved my precious cat from a tree and carried me into the sunset, I think it's high time to clarify. While that would have been an absolutely excellent story to tell, the one I have for you today is light years away from the romantic firefighter love story type we all know and love.
It all starts with who I am, who I've been my entire life. Out of all things that could mean something to me, I have always held words, my own and those of others, in extremely high regard. To even a young 8-year-old version of myself, the sentence, "Actions speak louder than words," couldn't have been further from the truth. It didn't matter if my younger brother screamed directly into my ear at the crack of dawn, pulled my hair, and hit me with a plastic hair dryer toy, if he said he loved me and was sorry, it meant the world to me, and it always has. I always assumed it took a lot of courage to say exactly what one felt, and lounged like a proud king in his own gold on the fact that it'd never been hard for me to "say what 'ya need to say."
Then I met James. I'm specifically referring to the James who wrote the book in the Bible. Now it all makes sense doesn't it? It may or may not make sense to you now, but if it does or doesn't that's irrelevant because I'm going to tell you anyway as a tribute to my true blabbermouth nature. In fact, the fact that I'm typing an entire rant about this subject is really an object of irony, but we'll get to that later.
I met James the first time at Catholic church camp when he most often served as one of the authors of the Bible that happened to support that my works in life mattered when it came to my salvation. The most popular of the verses to support this notion was James 2:18, "Now someone may say: "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without works! But I will show you my faith by means of works." I know now that Catholics, at least most of the ones I know, and I know A LOT, mean to use this verse in exactly the same way that others do, that works and faith go together, that our works are a natural product of our faith, and faith that doesn't produce works isn't very strong. I know now that even the criminal who died next to Jesus in the smallest moment, performed a work, by allowing the words to slip his tongue and confess that, in his heart, he truly believed that the man next to him was his Savior. But the point I want to make here is that when I first met James, I was under the impression that it mattered what I did in the aspect that I could walk my sinful self straight into Heaven, not that I had to consciously give my life up to my Heavenly Father every day and know that Christ alone is my salvation. So, in glorious conclusion to that epically long paragraph, that's where I was with James when I first met him.
My second encounter with James was probably when I started to read my Bible a lot more often, and by a lot more often, I mean once or twice a week instead of never. However, the second time I really had a memorable encounter was during discipleship with my lovely new friend who I'll neglect to name in this blog for her privacy. However, she's super wonderful and it's a gift from God to grow in faith with her together in college. Anyway, we went through James together, and that was the first time I've ever read it all the way through and truly put Scripture to action in my life. This time, we focused on a chapter a week, so I got all of it, but the verse that truly hit home was James 1:19, "Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry." I think that verse speaks very strongly independent of my commentary, so I'll leave it at that, and that's where James and I were at the end of the school year.
FINALLY TO THE EXCITING PART. Although I will take a moment to mention that this entire thing is exciting because God was working the entire time, however, it always seems to be the conclusion where I, the lowly and simple human, finally get to understand His great magnificent plan that excites me.
So there I was, ready to enter a summer working and living in my apartment without my roommate, in town without any friends (or so I thought), sitting on the most comfortable couches in the world ready to have a Bible study with those of us who had remained in town for the summer. Then, what do you know it? We are studying JAMES this summer. I can't even begin to explain the sinful dread that ran through my veins. I had just read that, literally two weeks before. I had just delved as deep as I possibly could into it and couldn't POSSIBLY see MORE God in something I'd read so many times. Literally I thought about leaving that night and not coming back. Because what was it worth? Oh, boy, would I get to see that just a month down the road!
Here I am now, sitting at work, passionately typing this long and drawn out blog and I've finally reached my point. God, in all of His crazy beautiful wisdom had me sitting on those couches a month later, with a friend that I am so thankful is in town this summer. God had me there, ready to hear the same book I'd read so many times before all over again. But this time I heard something entirely different. This time, my soul settled down on this passage: James 3:1-12
"Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 Indeed,
we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we
would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.
3 We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. 4 And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.
But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. 6 And
the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness,
corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it
is set on fire by hell itself.
7 People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! 11 Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? 12 Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring."
Now,
for a moment, just let that lovely passage sink in. Let the words
travel from your brain to your soul, trickling down into every crevice
that may or may not feel like hearing God today, and here's a little
background on why, when I let it fill me up, it wracked everything I'd
ever believed about words.
This summer, I have been more lonely than I've ever been in my entire life. Regardless of the fact that I've found some friends to surround myself with, I still come home every night to a dark apartment and miss the ones that aren't here. For me, that's the hardest thing in the entire world because there's nothing that means much more to me than my best friends. When I am given the gift of friendship, those people become my family. I've had all summer to feel what it'll be like when we leave college and don't get to see each other every night, and I've unfortunately made the mistake of replacing how sad it makes me with anger. Because it's too sad for me to miss them, so I take their peace and acceptance towards life just happening as not caring. I've lashed out more than enough times at them about every little thing when I don't get the words I want to hear from their mouths. And boy I've never been more wrong.
See, the thing is, at all times I have so many words at the tip of my tongue, ready to bubble out. The difference in my life this summer is that it seemed like there's been no one to hear them. I've been forced to realize that God had isolated us together this summer so I would learn that He would always be there to hear me. While I've definitely grown and realized that that's true, it took until yesterday to comprehend the big beautiful picture sitting right in front of me.
God has everyone where they are because that's where they're supposed to be.
The tongue, what we say, is a DIRECT outpouring of our soul.
My soul, with such a need to expel my words and take in the words of others, wants nothing more
than to make everything okay, to stop life right where it is that it's most comfortable and sit there and talk talk talk about how great it is to be there, unchanging and fat and happy.
My tongue has set my entire life on fire and I can't control any other part of my life because I can't control it. It's like a distress call at all times screaming, "I'm Sam's soul! All I want is to know that it'll all be alright!"
My friends souls aren't saying the same thing. They are at the point where words don't mean everything. So they don't have to tell me every moment that it's all going to be okay even though we're in different places, that we're just a phone call away even when life takes us away from college.
That most certainly does not mean they don't care, and now I know that the words I've uttered to them can hurt them as much as they hurt my soul to say.
When I'm a teacher, a more literal application of this passage, I could easily say something that sets someone else's life on fire because the thing is, fire spreads. Even in situations where I can't directly say thing about my Lord and Savior, my soul will say it all with the words that roll off my tongue. And that's a work in it of itself, just like the words of the criminal next to Jesus. So that's another reason why I should remember this forever.
If you haven't caught on to the irony yet, it's that I'm writing a long story about how I no longer need to make everything a long story. I'm sure most of you had would get that by now, but there's always those out there like me who need the point to smack into them directly. Anyways..
It's extremely important for me to have seen this larger picture. I know now, after truly hearing James, the firefighter who was divinely inspired to write what would put out the hellfire on my tongue, that everything is going to be alright. No longer will every outcry of my soul dash run off of my tongue with my words. God's here. It's safe. And everything will be okay.
