Shut up!

Don't you love being a kid? I loved being a kid because I had a big mouth, mostly as a teenager, and I could say just about anything and get away with it. Even in high school, I rarely kept my mouth shut...imagine that!! If there was something I didn't like or someone I didn't like, I had no problem telling them exactly what I thought about them or the situation. And I knew girls who didn't open their mouths, they were more temperate and calm, but I considered them weak. So, as I did and still do, I took up for them with my unshut mouth. I mean it was my position to do that especially when the uptaking was ripe for the picking.

As I've gotten older, I have been more cautious about my mouth but the mouth in my head continues to verse its own opinion even in the quiet of my mind. So inevitably, somewhere in the midst of a conversation, that opinion will sneak out (and I do mean sneak - altho I do tend to provide the open door or window for it to get out). And while, I believe for a small part, I have grown in my age and in my mind and the way I look at things and people, I still have that small part of me that just jumps without thinking. That part of me that holds grudges without releasing them and that part of me that just doesn't know when to shut up.

This morning, after several mornings of not reading anything or getting myself motivated toward God, I picked up my Streams in the Desert (a devotional that I am getting for all my friends - soon) and guess what the topic was....yep - basically in a nutshell - shut up! It was a short, broken up passage from Isaiah 53 - so of course I had to look up the whole chapter because Lord knows I've never read this or if I have it just didn't sink in - so off to crosswalk.com I went. (And yes I used the computer not my actual Bible-laziness!) Ok back on track, I read these first 7 versus of Isaiah 53 because I wanted to know who the author was talking about because this whole 1/2 page of devotional was about keeping your mouth shut. Ok so it doesn't actualy say that but when you get down to it and read between the lines, that's exactly what it was about. So I read these, or skimmed the versus, and it was about the affliction of Christ. Ok so first of all, wasn't expecting that altho I should have expected it, I've read in Isaiah before and the majority of it is about Christ. So the 'shut up' took on a different meaning this morning. An all in all different meaning this morning. In Isa 53:4 - 7, Isaiah (I think) says "....surely he took up our infirmities and our sorrows...but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our inequities...we all are like sheep and have gone astray each of us has turned his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all...He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth, he was led like a lamb to slaughter...yet he did not open his mouth." I wonder if Christ, in his humanly form, wanted to set judgment on those afflicting him, wanted to shout out for the unforgiven person who was afflicted for words or actions, I wonder if he really had a lot to say and for our sake kept his mouth shut? Don't you? I wonder if I can ever keep my mouth shut, it was something that I was working on in the past, not taking up other peoples offenses and lately that has ebbed, I have no problem spouting off at the mouth and sometimes it sounds like my 18yr old self coming out again. And then I read this small passage that said 'shut up'.

So maybe I need to stay quiet and work on quieting my mind's mouth. And maybe I need to work on what really needs to take place in my life and the lives of my family and friends and truly let things that offend me and others go. Will I? I don't know and I can't answer that for sure with a definite yes, but I can say this, I know what matters in life now more than ever. I know that the little things, altho still a battle in my mind and out of my mouth, are just that little things. I know more than ever that the things people say and do are a trick, a target to get me to look at them and let my mouth run amuck. That doesn't mean that I don't look, I still do, but what I want it to mean is that I know and can recognize it now and cause that moment of looking to turn into a moment of shutting my mouth. I don't have to open my mouth, never have had too really, but I've wanted to and so leads my free will to do as I please, to go astray. So how do I keep my mouth shut? Well I don't really know, but I know that I know that I know, that I don't have to say anything...someone has already said it all, I just have to believe what He said was enough.