Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.  Are you familiar with that verse?  There are a few commonplace verses in our home and this is one of them.  (In case you're wondering the other two biggies are: If a man doesn't work he doesn't eat followed by Idle hands are the devil's workplace.)

So here is how it all happened.  It was brought to my attention that one of my little angel children made a not so nice remark regarding a sibling.  Not only was it not nice, but it was downright rude and nasty.  To my dismay I had to fix it.  I say to my dismay because I would much rather teach in a fun cuddly way, not because someone has spewed hurtful words.  Well, I did a quick inventory and here is what I thought of.  I could simply discipline and demand an apology but would that solve the problem?  Not really.  Should I just say, "If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all"?  The words were said.  Feelings were hurt and really the verse is correct in that it was from the overflow of a heart that words were spoken.  Anything less than getting to the root of the problem would be putting a band-aid on a festering sore.  We needed to dig deeply to solve the problem.  This child was old enough to do this and that is what I instructed.

Then I realized something.  Her speaking out what was in her heart, however ugly, showed a lack of maturity.  If a few years older she would have known not to speak these words aloud for it is not proper.   So immaturity caused words to be said.  Therefore maturity would be holding these words inside.  Does anyone see the problem here?  The problem wasn't what she said out loud it was that she felt these things in her heart and then spoke them.  Isn't that a common issue.  We adults too have times when the overflow of our heart is ugly but we are mature enough to hold these feelings in check, but does that get to the root of the problem and solve them because we know how to hold our tongue?  My child's outburst showed me that I may not always speak my true heart yet it is very dark with sin.

Next time you're faced with a matter of the heart let me encourage you to stop and get to the heart of the matter so we can teach, correct, rebuke and train our children in righteousness so we all may be equipped for the work of God.