We have all experienced times when we wish we had not said what we said! As Adlai Stevenson once put it, “Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.” How much more beneficial for our digestive system if we have fewer of those words to eat—especially the bitter and angry ones?

James said, “No man can tame the tongue” (James 3:8). Although that means words will make up part of our diet throughout our lives, with God’s help we can learn self-control and we can practice thinking before we speak.

In that way, fewer of our words will slip onto our dinner plates. Once we have learned to admit fault and have developed tact in our conversations, our diets will improve greatly—as will our lives.