One Tiny Spark… Hello weekend readers. I am musing on what disaster our tongues cause when we set off one tiny spark of fire. Not just fire that burns, but fiery words that burn the hearts of others.

I am a news lover, I like to know what is going on in my community, state, country and the world. What I see, read and hear tells me that we have a terrible addiction for bashing one another if someone doesn’t agree with our point of view. I would actually define this addiction as a ‘global pandemic’!

Somehow we think we can demand others to accept that our way is right and all of the rest are wrong. That is one of the horrible consequences that feeds our gun violence these days. It feels as if we have joined another group that plotted the death of Jesus—the Pharisees!

In my Smithsonian email today, it shared a story from Borneo! That caught my attention so I read it and thus you get this devotion—not sorry! All kidding aside, think about those times when you stomped your feet and said “I am right and you are wrong!” How did that turn out? Probably just like the stubborn health workers in Borneo below. Let’s read about it…

In a small village in Borneo, well-intentioned health workers once sprayed the straw huts with the now-illegal substance DDT. They fully knew the dangers of DDT but they thought it was worth a try because of the mosquito population that carried the deadly malaria to so many communities in Africa. Their purpose of the spraying to control the mosquito population and reducing cases of life-threatening malaria among the tribe was honorable, however, they didn’t think of the unintended consequences they’d incur.

The spray didn’t kill just the mosquitos. It also killed the lizards that normally inhabited the thatch walls of the huts. The village cats then ate the lizards and died also. That resulted in an unrestrained influx of rats into the village which gave more disease to the people! Not only that, the lizards’ demise left the population of straw-consuming caterpillars free to reproduce. They eventually gobbled up the straw roofs of the huts, taking down a whole community. And how about the people that lived there? They had all kinds of medical issues that had never even happened in their part of the world. Many died a very painful death.

The Apostle James, Jesus’ brother, wrote to this problem of ‘our tongues’ in his Epistle: “A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. 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, smoke right from the pit of hell.” -James 3:3-6 [MSG]

We forget that almost every action has unintended consequences. We think we are in control of our actions, but that’s just not true. That one little spark can create a multitude of harm, destruction and devastation—and that goes to our ecology as well as the people we have demeaned. As the children of God, we should know better and think before we blurt out words that may not be true. God wants us to think through the consequences of our actions before we act. Sadly, we don’t think about this until it is too late. Once those words are out, you cannot take them back.

In closing, we all must try our best to be mindful of the consequences of our actions. We must make wise choices to do what’s right—and therein is the main problem, why? Because we are the ones making the wise choice from our perspective—not God’s. It would go a lot better if we would first ask God what wise choice God wants us to choose. After all you don’t want to be a ‘Pharisee you see’! AMEN.