Christ spoke with righteous anger to the Pharisees and to those making a mockery of the temple. There is a place for strong words and rebuke. The truth is important and shouldn’t be withheld, but the manner in which it is spoken can be the difference between war and peace. Next time we open our mouths to speak or move our fingers to tweet, an honest evaluation of our own heart and the possible outcomes should be our opening move.

It’s doubtfully a surprise to anyone to say that we live in an age of increasing division and polarization. This fact seems to accentuate the need for each of us to use wisdom in how we speak and engage with one another. It’s likely that each of us can look back at times in our lives when, in hindsight, we realize we should have kept our mouth shut, or perhaps we should have spoken up instead of remaining silent. This will probably be a lifelong struggle for many of us, but God has not left us to our own devices, trying to figure it out on our own. As with all the important aspects of life, He’s given us instruction in His Word, and in this specific case, true and perfect wisdom which we can utilize to tread this thorny path.
When seeking practical instruction about various aspects of life, Proverbs is always a great place to begin. One of the more famous proverbs comes in chapter 26. In verse 4, Solomon says “do not answer a fool according to his folly.” In a beautiful twist, immediately afterward in verse 5 he says, “answer a fool according to his folly.” This is not Solomon contradicting himself, but rather he is showing the wonderful intricacies of life in a fallen world. There are times when wisdom dictates that we speak up, but there are also times when wisdom dictates that we remain silent. The role of godly wisdom is to know the difference between the two, to accurately evaluate the situation one finds themselves in and know which path is the right one. It’s not an easy task, to be sure. Solomon adds weight to the dilemma just two verses later when he says that even the right message delivered in the wrong way is like cutting off your own feet. It’s not only counterproductive, but harmful to oneself.
More could be gleaned from Proverbs, but perhaps the clearest instruction on our speech comes in James 3. It is in this famous chapter that the epistle writer and brother of Christ Himself tells us about the dangers of the tongue. James uses some vivid analogies to show not only the power of the tongue, but the danger of it as well.
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Keeping attentive in prayer isn’t simply about carving out some time in one’s schedule. Rather, keeping attentive in prayer must stem from a heart always in communion with God and a mind always prepared for battle. It is these two characteristics of a believer that should drive an attentive and diligent prayer life. 

They had one job to do: stay awake and pray. Peter, James, and John, often like the rest of us, failed to accomplish the one simple task they had. Christ took his most trusted inner apostolic circle deeper into the garden with Him as He went a stone’s throw further to spend time in prayer. He simply asked the three to stay awake, watch, and pray. Yet in perhaps an eerie foreshadow of Peter’s later denial, three times Christ had to come wake them up from their slumber. Yet how often does the slumber of the apostles on the night of their Savior’s betrayal simply mirror our own? Prayer is often one of the most difficult spiritual endeavors, a challenge caused by varying circumstances and reasons. Attuning one’s heart to the transcendent Creator of the universe is hard enough for finite creatures, but the task is made even more difficult when doing so while jumping the hurdles of life in a fallen world. To top it off, many of us have imbibed the western value of busyness, always jumping from one activity to the next without a moment’s breath in between. Our minds, in sync with the rest of ourselves, move from one subject of thought to the next, often revolving around what the next task is that needs completing or wondering what unexpected cliff we will encounter next.
Keeping attentive in prayer isn’t simply about carving out some time in one’s schedule. After all, Paul instructed the Thessalonians in 1 Thess. 5 to “pray without ceasing.” Surely he didn’t mean to tell the church there that they all had to quit their jobs in order to devote their time to praying. Rather, keeping attentive in prayer must stem from a heart always in communion with God and a mind always prepared for battle. It is these two characteristics of a believer that should drive an attentive and diligent prayer life. So how do we see these play out in the moment of weakness for the three apostles?
“Then He said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here and watch with me.’”
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