I Heard It from the Dentist

I got a crown yesterday. Not the Burger King kind or the one we hope to get in heaven, but the covers-a-gaping-hole-in-your-tooth kind. The $1,800 kind. Count me among the 99 percent of people who hate going to the dentist. Very few things freak me out like sitting inverted under a bright light with my twitching mouth wide open and a drill shooting shards of my enamel across the room.

About halfway through the drilling process yesterday, something strange happened. The dentist stopped what he was doing, raised me up in my chair, looked through my very stylish goggles into my eyes, and firmly said, "Leura. We are trying to help you, but your tongue is working against us. You're trying to hold it back and it's not working. You have to let us do it." He went on to explain that people have no idea how strong the tongue is.

Actually, I have a good idea. My tongue and I have been duking it out for years. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote that all the animals of the land and sea can be tamed, but no human being has ever successfully tamed the human tongue (James 3:7). When the dentist pointed out my uncooperative tongue, the metaphor was not lost on me. I immediately thought of my 2015 spiritual goal. The goal formed when I read in a devotional that the determining factor of spiritual maturity is not how many Bible verses we've memorized or how many good works we do, but the words that come out of our mouths.

Ouch. That stings more than the nick the dentist made in my tongue with his drill. I decided, after reading that a month ago, that I was going to get serious about "bridling" my unruly tongue. To bridle is to control or restrain, and James 1:26 tells me that my religion is worthless if I don't keep my words under control. My "religion" (though I don't often use that word) is everything to me. How devastating to think of it as worthless.

So I've tried hard to be more intentional with my words, the ones I say and the ones I don't say. I've tried to make myself think before I speak. Despite my efforts, I still regularly find myself needing to confess my careless, negative words. That's why the comment I heard yesterday connected with me at a level way beyond what you would expect from a conversation with a dentist. What if God had said those same words to me? "Leura, I'm trying to help you here, but you're working against me. Relax. Let me do the work. You can't hold your tongue back on your own anymore than you can sandblast your tooth with a drill on your own. It's too powerful."

This is not a battle I'm going to eek out on my own. (And really, so few of them are.) I can stuff a sock inside my mouth and still find a way to complain, criticize, gossip, and exaggerate. But the Holy Spirit is an expert in tongue management. This is His job. Instead of putting my efforts into trying to control my tongue myself, I'll find more victory in daily (hourly?) submitting myself to Him and being mindful of His work in me. He is so much better equipped for bridling than I am.

Another sign of spiritual maturity is how regularly we rely on the Spirit instead of ourselves. "You're trying to hold back your tongue, and it's not working. Let me do it." How much clearer could He be?