According to Harper’s Magazine doctors in the U.S. operate on the wrong person or wrong organ 40 times a day. Now I understand why the doctor that gave me a new knee came to me while I was still awake and asked me which leg. He then put a big X on it with a black marker. As bad as this fact is the truth is all of us are prone to error. How many times have I said something to a student that I wish I could suck back in? But once said it can last forever. How well I remember specific things my teachers said to me while I rarely remember the things I say to my students.
We need to be just as careful when we speak as operating doctors need to be before cutting. A misspoken word can do terrible things. “A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it.” James 3 in The Message
God is the only being not prone to error or misspeaking. He never desires to retract anything that He has said because He knows He will carry through. With God a promise is a promise. He has promised to be faithful to forgive anything that we confess. How grand.
Written by Roger Bothwell on June 3, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org