"Cowboy Rule"
He asked me if I noticed,
The way he threw his rope,
I didn’t, but was trying,
To give the young man hope.
He had the look, but lacked the skills,
And all who knew him knew,
But it was hard to help him,
‘Cause of his attitude.
Why was he so cocky,
One could only speculate,
Had lots to make him humble,
And none could make him wait.
When he needed to be noticed,
And craved a word of praise,
He showed his insecurity,
And did so on most days.
I thought how very often,
When I kept my mouth shut,
I rarely did regret it,
Though times stuck in a rut.
It was better to be silent,
And quietly work things out,
Than say what I was thinking,
And be sorry then, no doubt.
Two ears, one mouth created,
Must mean there is a chance,
We listen twice what we should speak,
And that’s a safer stance.
And I will say a cowboy rule,
That everyone should follow,
Is rein back in the words we say,
‘Cause we will often swallow,
The words that we have spoken,
They can be hard to chew,
And if we try to listen,
We will learn it’s true.
And then when someone asks us,
We can our wisdom share,
And maybe make a difference,
‘Cause we’ve done that, been there.
“…For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way…” (James 3:2, NLT)
This verse and many others like it give us valuable counsel about the words we say. The book of Proverbs actually says our tongues have the power of life or death. How true. We can speak life or death into any given situation and it makes a difference. There is also great virtue in simply keeping silent. This statement from the book of James says if we can control this, we can control the rest of our behavior. That’s strong stuff right there! But how? The answer is to surrender control of what we think and say to the Holy Spirit. He will help us know what, when and how much to say.
Lord, help us with our words, in Jesus’ name.
Art by Shawn Cameron, shawncameron.com. Used by permission. Thanks, Shawn, and God bless you.