James‬ ‭3:1-12‬ ‭Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. 

“We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths.” A sobering and humbling truth. In full disclosure, this verse actually makes me laugh a bit; I believe it is the irony. We truly do think ourselves wise; our thoughts important, but in all actuality they are finite words grasping at the infinite. How low our understanding and ways are compared to His. 

CS Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I am challenged by this verse to stay steadfast in His truth, shedding my own reasonings, judgements, and understandings – trusting that if I stay connected to Life, He will be the teacher — bringing to life His own infinite nature and joy poured out for each one of us. And I am hopeful that I can stay out of the way if my eyes are on Him.