Just One Match

Last week we made huge progress on our land with the help of our brother-in-law and his expertise with a digger. He rolled huge macrocarpa logs and piles of rotten timber into five big piles, and then we set them alight. And all it took was one small match. Samuel, my 8 year old son, couldn’t get over it. He said, “Look at the huge fires, Mummy! And all from one match!” It was a great opportunity to talk about the formidable power our words have. As it says in the book of James, our words can start a tremendously destructive fire. “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire…” (James 3:5,6)

Those five fires burnt for ten days! A wonderful object lesson about controlling our tongues and measuring the words we speak.