"Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding." Proverbs 17:27 (ESV)
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite places to pass the time was on our couch, snuggled up on my father’s lap, watching television. One of my dad’s favorite programs was also one of mine — the Andy Griffith Show. The plot centered around the folk of a small town named Mayberry and featured Sheriff Andy Taylor, a widower, his precocious young son, Opie, and their loving Aunt Bea who kept things together on the home front.
But my favorite character of all was the sheriff’s bumbling sidekick, Deputy Barney Fife. I laughed my way through Barney’s antics.
Trigger-happy Barney prided himself on being "quick to the draw," and he loved to "watch the lead fly." He would frantically grab for his gun whenever there was an utterance of trouble brewing. In haste and excited recklessness, he would try to draw his pistol from his holster to protect the town from evil, but in doing so, he’d quickly shoot from the hip and shoot himself in the foot instead.
Now before we get lost in idioms and Mayberry reminiscing, let’s make a practical application. We might not carry a deputy’s pistol, but we shouldn’t shoot from the hip with our words either. Better said, we shouldn’t "shoot from the lip."
