Guard your tongue

Yesterday our church conducted a worship service at one of the nursing homes in our area. We provide a worship service at two nursing homes once a month. Yesterday my wife, Abbie and I went to the wrong nursing home for the worship service. While the rest of the team was leading in worship in Yorkville we were ministering to an elderly man in Oswego. Perhaps it was not an accident that we were in the wrong place.
While we were there we ministered to Charley. Charley is 81 years old and enjoyed talking with us while he waited for a family member to visit him. As we began talking Charley told us some interesting stories about his life and some of the things he had done. I told Charley that we would be back next week to have a worship service and invited him to come.
With a great deal of respect he said that he did not need to come to church and then he shared his story. Charley was serving in Germany during the Korean War and met a young German lady that he decided he wanted to marry. She had three little girls and was raising them on her own. He wanted to marry her while he was in the army so that the army would pay to move his family back to the states. In order to marry a national Charley had to have approval from many different people in the chain of command. He got everyone's approval until he came to the chaplain. The chaplain told Charley that he could not approve the marriage, because too many of them had ended in divorce. From the chaplain's perspective, whenever these foreign wives arrive in the states, they fall in love with another man with more money and divorce their soldier husband. So Charley could not marry this young lady.
However, he told the chaplain that he would prove him wrong and vowed that he would never step foot in a church as long as he lived. He got is discharge in Germany and stayed 4 1/2 years in Germany to save enough money to bring his new family to the states. Charley's wife died 6 years ago and he kept his word, he has never entered a church since that time. Though he is respectful to God he does not believe that one needs to attend church.
After he shared his story I told him that we would be having a worship service next week and since we would not be in an actual church building he could still keep his word. However, I don't know if Charley will be there or not.
So what is the point of this little story? It is very simple, we must always be careful with what we say. I am not faulting the chaplain for his words, but often times our words have an impact that we know nothing about. James states that we are to restrain our tongue, because if we cannot restrain our tongue then we might be decieving ourselves into thinking we are religious when in reality we are not. The tongue is a volitile instrument that can be used for good and evil. Everytime we speak we should guard our tongue, for afterall someone is listening. We never know the damage our words may cause to another individual. Be careful what you say little mouth is what the old nursery song said and perhaps we would be wise to heed this advice as well. Guard your tongue becuse it can be sharp and cause a lot of damage if we are not careful.