With the drought in the Cape, I started to collect rainwater. Many people did the same and bought plastic tanks. I did a decent job of it and installed five 5000-litre tanks.

All the tanks are connected, and if it has rained about 100 millimeters, they are full. With a pressure pump that turns itself on when a tap is turned on, I’m off the municipal grid for a large part of the year.

With the chlorine shortage in the country, our municipal water smelled a bit. One was actually afraid to drink it. I only had to open one tap and close another, then I was on the rainwater tanks, and pure, clean water came out of all the taps in the house.

It’s the farmer in me that likes to make plans …

When I switch the taps, the municipal water can no longer enter my yard. The water cannot mix. It’s so quick to do; we actually forgot about the other people in the street who were still struggling with the dirty water in their taps.

⁹With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. ¹⁰Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! ¹⁰My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? ¹¹Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? ¹²You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

When we talk to God, we talk nicely. We do not dare to say anything ugly about Him. When we talk about God, we also speak nice words because He is, after all, God. Beautiful, clean water flows from the tap of our mouths.

But when we talk about someone close to us, we soon say things that are not so gentle on the ear. Did you hear again what this or that one did? Wow, that one’s crazy. This is the way we criticise the people around us. The water flowing from the tap of our mouths is not so beautiful and clean.

That doesn’t add up. You cannot open my tap and at the same time get lovely rainwater as well as smelly municipal water. Because I switched the taps, the water from the two sources is kept separate.

That’s why we must turn off the tap that fills the tongue with dirty and nasty words. We have to make a point of letting only kind words flow out there. Let your words build up others and let them bloom, and don’t let the words that tear down and hurt ever be born.

Scripture
James 3:1-12

Reflection
Are different messages coming out of your mouth?
What can you do to let only uplifting words come out?
What should you do to stop critical words from coming out first?

Prayer
Father, it is actually easy to understand that clean and dirty water cannot flow from one tap, but it is not so easy to do it with the tongue. Help! In Jesus’ Name. Amen.