Do Not Attempt This In Your Own Home

Do Not Attempt This In Your Own Home. Those words are splayed along the bottom of commercials sometimes – usually when a stunt actor is doing something rather crazy. Try to replicate his feat and you might end up in the hospital.

I'm thinking those words ought to be underneath some of the behaviors that various New Testament writers condemn so often. Rage. Gossip. Malice. Scorn. I find myself often trying to draw some fuzzy line around home behaviors that permit me to stray into those behaviors "because the situation is different when I'm home."

It's hardly the case that I have no struggles with rage or scorn in the home, but at the moment I'm thinking about gossip. There are all kinds of nuances to the special marriage relationship, but when I cut through all the excuses, the fact is that I know I'm telling my wife things she doesn't need to hear. I gossip with my wife.

God's been convicting me about it. Specifically, a comment made by Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline cut me like a knife. "Guarding the reputation of others is a deep and lasting service."

Too often I fall far short on this. And it's usually at home, at the end of the day. With Debby. When I read Foster's words, I immediately had a gut reaction which said, "There are a lot of reputations I don't guard when I'm alone with Debby."

But that's how my day went... She's my wife and has a right to know... I don't keep secrets from Debby...

Excuses, excuses. By and large a pile of cheap excuses. Excuses to allow me to unload gossip and hurtful words in the home that I often know better than to share when I'm elsewhere.

So I'm thinking to try another approach to this matter of gossip. It goes like this: If I can hold the line with Debby, I can hold it anywhere. If I fail to hold the line with Debby, I'll fail elsewhere too. This good habit needs to begin at home. Yes, I suppose there will be things that still need to be said. But an awful lot of things that spill from my mouth don't need to be said.

James 3:3-12

When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.