A Reflection from the Fuel Daily Readings App for the Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Click here to read the reading.

Today I want you to stop, step back and think for a sec before speaking or acting. Why? Well, often when we don’t do this, what happens? We charge ahead, put our foot in our mouth & speak without thinking... only to (dang it!) pay for it later. Am I right?

In the first reading, Sirach gives us a handy tip on how to grow in wisdom, and it’s really simple but SOO challenging... ‘Watch the way you speak’.

Over in the gospel, when Jesus says “how can a blind man lead a blind man”, he’s talking to you and me! ‘Cos how often do we do just that? We either blurt out something we don’t know really about or are too quick to listen to the ‘advice’ of friends who don’t really have a track record of wisdom in life.
That’s why, as Jesus says, we should listen to the teachers/mentors in our lives and not presume we know better than they do. Humility is the beginning of wisdom!

So helpful tip: unless someone is wiser & maturer than you are, ‘a friend telling another friend where they have a speck in their eye’ is prob not going to help you very much! Today let’s place ourselves around the kind of faith-filled people who can really teach us with wisdom and maturity, and not ‘blind guides who will lead us into a pit.’

+ Lord you are the ultimate Guide I can trust to follow. Because you see all things, I trust you completely and I know that in following you my steps will be made secure. Help me guard my own speech Lord and only speak after first considering what wisdom would do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.