I remember as a child the joy of getting a balloon filled with helium. We didn’t get them very often because they weren’t as available as they are now.  No, you didn’t see them at the grocery store check-out line. A carnival or circus was the most common place to get them, and they didn’t come to town very often. That just made the balloon extra special because it was not only fun to play with, but it represented a special time that I had with my family. My parents would tie the string of the balloon to my wrist. Every time I took a step, the balloon “took a step” with me. If I jumped, it jumped. If I ran, it ran. I’m sure it didn’t last for days, but in my mind, the balloon stayed with me a long time. The hardest thing for me to do was keep the balloon string on my wrist. I was quite an escape artist and before my mom could turn around, I could slip the string off my wrist. Of course, my mom would always tell me to put it back on or I would lose it. I was in preschool. I knew much better than my mom, so I would slip it off, and cry because it would float up to the ceiling and I could not reach it. In a house with an 8-foot ceiling, that simple act wouldn’t be a problem, but at the time, we lived in a two-story house. The bottom half of the house was my dad’s office and the top half was our home. The ceiling in the office was “super-duper high” and it took a step stool to get the balloon down.  Of course, we only played in the office area when dad was not working there.  And yes, it was the best place to play because it was a huge room, with very little furniture in it. There was a lot of space to run and play.

One day, I remember my sister and I heading outside to play. We HAD to take our balloons outside. Nothing else would be as fun to do. We NEEDED our balloons outside with us. Once outside, we decided to slip the balloon off of our wrists. We had promised mom that we would not, but we did. “Yes mom, we know we can’t get it back if it gets away.” But since I knew best as a preschooler, the balloon would come off my wrist.  My sister was faster than I was, and off her balloon went. Up, up, and away, higher than the porch of the house. Higher than the nearby tree. Up, up toward the clouds.  By the time mom heard us screaming and crying over the balloon, it was long gone. Never to be retrieved. She was heartbroken. I remember lots of tears. I can’t count the times as an adult that I have seen the remains of a helium balloon stuck in the top of a school gym. Stuck on a high line wire going down the street. Stuck in a tree. All because a person (maybe child) couldn’t hang on to it. All because someone let it slip off their wrist. There is no way to retrieve a helium balloon once it is let go in a large open space. They are just gone. Off to places unknown. Never to come back.

James, the brother of Jesus, wrote about balloons (NOT REALLY, but I got your attention!) He did write about damage that words cause that “slip off the tongue”.  James 3:4-6 (NCV)“…. a ship is very big, and it is pushed by strong winds. But a very small rudder controls that big ship, making it go wherever the pilot wants.  It is the same with the tongue. It is a small part of the body, but it brags about great things.

Ok, I’ll just come right out and say it. I was a GREAT basketball player when I was in high school. You might say I was a legend in my own mind. (ba-boom ching!) One thing I would love to be able to do, is take back the words that slipped easily off of my tongue while playing the game. Out of my mouth would come words that I would never hold in my hand. Out of my mouth would come curses on referees and players from other teams. James really hits me between the eyes when I read a little farther down to verse 9, “We use our tongues to praise our Lord and Father, but then we curse people, whom God made like himself.”  The NIV Study Bible said something that I had never really thought completely about: “Praising the Lord is the BEST activity that our tongue can do. Cursing those made in His image, is one of the worst activities because it is an implicit curse on God himself.” When I allow words that harm others to slip off of my tongue, I am leaving a damaging wake of a ship behind me. Just as my mother told me to hang on to my balloon for safe keeping, I need to hang on to my words, carefully release them in a way that blesses others and won’t damage them.

Let’s look at verse 10 now. “A big forest fire can be started with only a little flame. And the tongue is like a fire. It is a whole world of evil among the parts of our bodies. The tongue spreads its evil through the whole body. The tongue is set on fire by hell, and it starts a fire that influences all of life.” 

You might read this in “Cherie’s Version”….a red helium balloon appears to be harmless, yet if it is let loose outside, it can damage wildlife. Yes, even destroy it. When the balloon pops, it becomes trash. People that walk on a beautiful path can forget about what God created and focus on the mess they see.” (No, I’m not going for an environmental discussion here. I’m just trying to show you how something can turn ugly when it is not kept in its proper place…inside the house.) Isn’t that what happens when we don’t control our tongue? When we don’t keep it guarded inside our temple? (1 Cor. 3:16-17 says we are the temple of The Holy Spirit. We are His house.) Someone can literally become “damaged” from their reputation being called into question. People will look at them and see “trash” and not who God created them to be.

When I stop and think about James writing this, I think about all the things that he saw the persecuted Christians go through. Lies were told about them. Lies that caused them to lose jobs. Lies that caused them to be thrown into prison. Lies that caused them to be beaten. AND he had to have known about all lies that had been hurled at Jesus, his own brother. These lies became rumors that “godly Jewish” leaders spread. (One example is in Matthew 12:22-32). Mobs came after Jesus because of rumors that were spread about him. James called his fellow Christians to look and act different from the world. He called them to hold their tongues and be careful with their words. His entire book is on Christian ethics. I too should look different from the world.

Watching what I say about others is a full-time job. It’s time for me to take a close look at what I do.  I think there are times as a Christian that I let my balloon go. I think I am in a room where it is safe to slip it off my wrist and play with it for a bit. The conversation goes something like this: “Have you heard about _____________? We need to pray for her.” Mind you it’s not that the prayer is not important, because it is.  The problem is the information I give to another person that should be kept to myself. I have slipped the balloon off of my wrist and given it for “safe keeping” to someone else.  We give them the opportunity to send the balloon on to others. And the floating “word balloon” starts to cause damage. I confess now that there have been times that I have released “balloons” through things that I have said. The words that I have spoken have drifted from my tongue out to other’s ears. From there, who knows where the words land.

There is a phenomenon in our world today that allows us to say anything we want and not take responsibility for any damage done to others. In “the old days” gossip and rumors were easy to do in a group setting, but many times you would see the direct impact that it would have on a person. Personally, the sight of the impact on others helped me to keep the words attached to “my balloon inside my house”. Our “smart phones” and computers that we own now let us hide behind their screen. We don’t see the faces of those that we hurt. A quick tap on a keyboard, and our balloons are set free for the world to see. We never see the person that has been trashed. We never see the impact of what others think of that person.

King Solomon was known as very wise. When God told him he would give him anything, Solomon asked for wisdom. God blessed Solomon with more wisdom than anyone (1 Kings 3:12). Solomon is credited for writing most of the book of Proverbs. It is said that he wrote the chapters 1-29.  Let’s look at the wisdom he wrote in Proverbs 6:16-19. There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:  haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.It blows my mind how relevant scripture written centuries ago is still so relevant today.  Words that slip off of our tongue easily, words that are said without a second thought, words that are typed quickly to someone, words that are lies and cause conflict with others, are one of the things that God hates and finds detestable.

I have debated about adding pictures of damage that happens to wildlife when they encounter balloons that have gotten away.  I chose to add it in link form so you can choose to look or not. They are very vivid. U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE  So why show you such a thing (especially if this is not an environmental piece)? I don’t think I could paint a picture of the damage that is done as well as these pictures do when “word balloons slip off of our tongue and leave our house”.

Let’s determine today to hold on to the “balloons” that have been entrusted to us.  Don’t let them “slip off” around others.  Keep them in our house and be very careful with them so they will not cause damage and harm to those that have been created in God’s own image.

Be blessed – Cherie