For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. – Psalm 139:4, King James Version (KJV)

The other day I had the pleasure of watching my elder daughter’s high school basketball game. During the final moments of our team’s victory, one of my daughter’s teammates – whom I’ll call Jackie – was repeatedly fouled by the opposing team. The two referees ignored all but the two most egregious fouls, and to add insult to injury, they called a couple of fouls on Jackie that were NOT fouls.

After the game, I happened to be in the restroom when Jackie’s father wandered in. When I saw him, I said, “Jackie got mauled out there. What’s up with that ref?” Jackie’s father looked at me with a sheepish grin, nodded his head in the direction of the one stall in the restroom, and over the top of the divider I could see the head of one of the refs. I chuckled inside as I said, “Oh,” out loud, and then I got out of there as quickly as I could!

One of the reasons to be careful about what we say is that you never know who might be listening. But even when it seems the coast is clear from human ears that we might offend, we need to remember that God hears everything we say. On top of that, He knows every attitude of heart that accompanies the things we say, making it doubly important to guard our hearts and minds against the unholy attitudes that precede unholy communication. Of course, when it comes to guarding our hearts and minds against unholiness, we are powerless to do so apart from the enabling power of God Himself. That is why we must keep a constant attitude of prayer and a constant habit of Bible reading, study, and meditation, for only when we saturate our minds with God’s way of thinking can we successfully fend off our human way of thinking.

For the record, it was the other ref that I was complaining about. 🙂