Cover Your Mouth

 

"The lips of the wise disperse knowledge, but the heart of the fool does not do so."  Proverbs 15:7 

When I was fairly young, I saw a movie on healthy living that had a huge impact on me. They were trying to get the point across that you should cover your mouth when you sneeze. To teach this lesson, they filmed a guy sneezing in slow motion. The lighting they used in filming the sneeze highlighted all the moisture  (I won't say spit), that dispersed out of the 'sneezer's' mouth.

The image has stuck with me, and whenever I'm around anyone who is sneezing, my mind automatically flashes to that picture of a slow-moving cloud of moisture moving toward me. Since that movie, I have also begun doing what I am told is a bad habit...I hold my own sneezes in. I've been told that this could cause a heart attack, or a herniated disc, and one teacher even told me I could pop my eyes out! I hold my sneeze with the good intention of not dispersing anything bad to any bystanders.

I would like you to keep the image of the slow motion sneezer in your mind as we reflect on the words we speak from our mouth.  When we speak, we can speak as the wise or as the fool. The wise will disperse knowledge, encouragement, wisdom, and edification. The fool will sneeze forth discouragement, division, disputes, and worse.   

Let's all wise to cover our mouths, or perhaps hold our words in so as to disperse only words that bring health.