God’s Italian Pinch

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Psalm 141:3 ESV

When our boys were small, we used to drive down to visit my dad and stepmom once every six weeks. Since it was such a long ride, we generally met at church and of course our sons would run to their grandparents and then snuggle in on either side of their gramma in the pew. Now our sons loved their gramma, and would usually try to be good, but almost inevitably one of them would start poking his brother or talking loudly during the sermon.  That is when my stepmom, would quietly reach over and give a good Italian pinch on whichever one was acting up. That got their attention! Suddenly they would sit straight up, quiet down and at least start pretending to listen!

In today’s verse, David prays for God’s correction over the unruliest part of our anatomy – the tongue. He asks God to put a guard over his mouth and a watchman over his lips.  It sounds to me as if He is asking for a good old fashioned Italian Pinch. But for that pinch to work we must start out by sitting close enough to God for Him to reach us. Sure, He might correct is, but just as our sons decided with their gramma, it is worth the risk. Second, when that pinch comes, we can’t run away. Instead, we have to sit up straight and be quiet! Lastly, try to remember that God is getting our attention for a reason. He has a wonderful message for us to hear and we need to do more than just pretend to listen. His guard is on our tongue because God loves us and guards us because we are precious to Him!