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Foot-in-Mouth Disease
September 7, 2001
"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness." James 3:9 (NIV)
I was just standing next to our suitcases, minding my own business, when my wife ran over to me yelling, "Matt, get in here! The credit card keeps getting declined! The guy is on the phone right now!"
At that point in the evening, I was worn out. We had just flown nine hours from San Jose to Boston for my sister's wedding, and a courtesy shuttle driver with Indy 500 aspirations had just dropped us and our luggage in front of the rental car company. While I watched the bags—presumably to scare off any surly-looking characters from making off with my daughter's Hello Kitty dolls—Amy and Kylie went inside to handle the paperwork and get our car for the hour-long drive to our hotel in New Hampshire.
The part where my wife became frantic happened five minutes later. Testosterone pumping, I went in to the rental car place and proceeded to yell at the credit card guy for declining our card. Then, after finding out that the rental car guy had sold my wife some bells and whistles we didn't need, thus putting us over our available credit limit, I moved on to yelling at him. Finally, once we got into our car, I leaned into my wife for not handling the entire situation herself.
I justified the whole affair to myself as simply another case of 'getting my Irish up.' But you know what? I was doing nothing less than sinning, pure and simple. Rather than seeing my wife, the rental car guy, and the credit card guy as people made in the image of God, I saw them as people out to ruin my day. All I got for my troubles were three irritated people, not including God and myself.
Our tongues can both bless and curse. Let's ask God to help us prevent our tongues from igniting any fires of sin. And if (or when) we blow it, I pray that we can all seek forgiveness and reconciliation. It's either that or, in my case, the very real possibility of spending a night on the couch.
— Matt Donnelly, for the ChristianityToday.com staff
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