Here is a Bible verse we should all commit to memory: ‘Keep what you know to yourself, and you will be safe; talk too much, and you are done for’ (v. 3 CEV). Simply put, your tendency to speak without thinking will keep getting you into trouble. The story is told of a vacuum cleaner salesman who had been given a remote rural area as his territory. He was going from farmhouse to farmhouse on his first day on the job, attempting to sell vacuum cleaners. As he arrived at one farmhouse, he knocked on the door and was met by a farmer’s wife who asked him what he wanted. Without asking permission, he shoved right past her into the kitchen and said, ‘I’m selling vacuum cleaners.’ Shocked, she replied, ‘Wait a minute!’ But he demanded, ‘Ma’am, before you say anything, I want to show you something.’ Then he reached into his bag, pulled out a pail of dirt, and threw it across her kitchen floor. ‘If my vacuum cleaner won’t pick up all that dirt,’ he bragged, ‘then I’ll eat it!’ She looked at him and said, ‘Then you better get busy, ’cause we ain’t got no electricity!’ How often we have to eat the words we so recklessly toss on the floor of everyday living! Be careful. Jesus said one day we will give an account for every idle word we speak (see Matthew 12:36). An unknown poet wrote, ‘Be careful of the words you say and keep them soft and sweet. You never know from day to day which ones you’ll have to eat.’ So unless you want to eat your words, think carefully before speaking.
