Ants? And Things

   "Ants?  When we first moved in I had a problem with ants on this counter.” I told an acquaintance at church. “Seemed like we had one of those science-fiction type 'trans-mat' things going here.  I would have the counter cleaned off, and no ants anywhere.  Then before my very eyes, there would be this stupid little creature scurrying around on my counter...right in the middle of the counter.  Just appear out of nowhere.  But for the last...oh I don't know...couple of years we haven't had a problem with ants."

   Ever had some of those 'famous last words'?  You've got it.  Within days after the above conversation, what should suddenly begin to appear on my counter?  Ants.  Stupid little ants that don't really want anything, except to scurry around on my counter!

   Words, famous or other wise, can some times cause us stress, and like an apparition of the night come back to haunt us. 

   "I don't know about that boy," I tell another acquaintance.  "He just opens his mouth, and things come out."  --Our youngest son had just made an interesting comment on something. However, after thinking it over, it came to me just who he had inherited this talent from. 

   Sometimes it's a tactless comment.  ('Your looking good today.  You only need to lose a hundred pounds now?'--well, it started off as a compliment)  Often it is a comment that just doesn't come out the way you mean it to, ('that shade of green goes with your complexion'--hmm) but there isn't exactly any way to make it come out any better (just different, and it would have sounded odd then as well). 

   "When God was passing out brains, you thought he said trains.  Since you weren't going any where you didn't get any," my mother used to tell me.  One of my sons used to chide me that I missed my 'calling'--whenever I had a 'blond' moment.  It is made more humorous because he is blond, even though I'm not.   Sometimes both my mother and my son are right.

   Psalm 19:14 "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in thy sight, O Jehovah, my rock, and my redeemer."

 Psalm 5:3 "O Jehovah, in the morning shalt thou hear my voice; In the morning will I order my prayer unto thee, and will keep watch."

   How much better to begin the day with a prayer, and instead of waiting for our 'adversary to trip us up' --1Peter 5:8  Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,-- remember the Psalmist's prayer in the morning...and throughout the day.   

   As the children were growing up I would mentally chide myself with, "She openeth her mouth with wisdom; And the law of kindness is on her tongue."--Proverbs 31:26 .  Children need to hear words of kindness, lest the other 'words' become self-fulfilling. 

   I know that as Proverbs 31:30 tells us, "Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; But a woman that feareth Jehovah, she shall be praised," yet some days I crave the 'grace' to say the RIGHT kind words, as well as the needful words of encouragement.  Please, Lord, just a little more grace--of the right sort.

1Peter 3:10 "For, He that would love life, And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips that they speak no guile:"

   James 3:8 "But the tongue can no man tame; it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison."

   James 3:17 "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy. 18)  And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.