The Experiment

We consider the Doorposts product, Plants Grown Up, to be an essential part of our homeschooling. It's full of wonderful projects for Godly manhood. Currently, Little Big Man is studying the section titled "Self-Control Over the Tongue." One of his assignments is to have someone listen carefully to his speech throughout the day, placing a bean in one jar whenever he hears edifying speech and a bean in another jar when they hear the tongue used in an ungodly manner.

Knowing that all of the members of the Poff Clan struggle with self-control over the tongue to one degree or another, we decided this would be even more appropriate as a family experiment.

We decided each member (excluding Little Bit) would have his own set of jars. Little Big Man decided to label them "good words" and "unkind words," and Mommy chose to use M&Ms for words that edify to create a stronger picture of the difference between the building up and tearing down examples in our speech. We also decided that one day was not long enough to create an impression on us regarding how we use our words, so we'll be doing this experiment for a week.

So often, we don't even realize how often we tear down with our tongues, speaking in rude, discouraging, or ungodly ways, and actually having a picture in front of us that represents the times we've built up and the times we've torn down is quite powerful. At the end of each day, we'll examine our jars, which will be a glimpse into our hearts. We'll then consider specific ways to improve (i.e. consistently praying about this area of our lives, posting Scripture reminders, memorizing applicable verses, etc) where we struggle, remembering that it is by the grace of God, and not of our own power, that our speech reflects the love of Christ.

What would your jars look like?