overflow

my friend sam and i decided to read the entire Bible over the course of the year, and i slacked off for a couple days, and this was part of my catch-up reading in matthew 12...

"make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. you brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? for out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."

the whole good-tree-bears-good-fruit-bad-tree-bears-bad-fruit thing is nothing new for me. in fact, i've heard it a hundred times before. but that last little part just really threw me for a loop: "out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."

i say a lot of really dumb mean things, and most of the time i blame it on something else. but really, what is on my heart right now? those times when i say mean things, is that really coming from some hormone imbalance, or is my heart filled with that?

think about it: the next time i run my mouth, hopefully i'll remember reading this and evaluate what's on my heart, even if only for a few seconds.

or maybe (and this may be worse) your heart really has something beautiful to say, but you're holding it back. i can definitely say that's true for me; there are things i feel that are just bottled up in there and aren't ready to "overflow" because there isn't much there. so maybe it's time to find whatever it is that will make it overflow: time with loved ones, time with God, a Disney animated movie that always makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. maybe it's time to let that all out and show what your heart is really made of.