Positioned gracefully across the Book of Psalms is a string of seventy-one pearls, lovely beads of wisdom followed by the admonition SELAH which means, “Pause, think on these things, meditate.”
Psalm 52:4-5 “You love every harmful word, O you deceitful tongue! Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah.”
Meditation
The tongue! It’s a little piece of the body that no man, woman or child can control—like an untamed mustang that hasn’t felt a bit, or a runaway motorboat with a broken rudder. Like a serpent with a forked tongue, I have used mine alternately to bless and curse.
Worse yet, out of the mouth, the heart speaks. So that when my tongue is wicked, it betrays my wicked heart. A wicked heart has little room for God.
The next time I am tempted to cast aspersions in someone’s direction, this pearl will remind me that I’m the one who deserves “to be torn from my tent and brought to ruin.” An old friend says,
whenever you point the finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself. Ouch!
SELAH
Look up: James 3:8; Matthew 12:34; Psalm 39:1; 1 Corinthians 11:31
