When I was young, our family would watch That’s Incredible every Sunday evening after worship. The hour-long TV show ran from 1980 to 1984 and starred John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton, and Cathy Lee Crosby. It was a reality show that featured people doing amazing stunts or showcasing special talents. In 1980, Time magazine called it the most sadistic show on TV. One type of segment they aired frequently was different people setting up domino shows. I even had to go out and buy a few packages of dominoes myself and set them in interesting patterns and knock them over.
Back in August of 2018, some people in Nidda, Germany were trying to set a Guinness world record by setting up a domino show. It took them two weeks to set up nearly 600,000 dominoes. But before they could break the world record, a small fly landed on one of those little dominoes and set up a chain reaction that destroyed their effort to break a record. The little guy did not knock down all the dominoes, but it still took 15 minutes for them to fall. And the organizers won three less famous world records.
The impact of “small things” can be quite out of proportion to those small things. James warns us of the destructive nature of our tongue (words) that might remind us of this little fly: “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” (3:5-6).
Let us be very careful about the words we use. We can apologize for them, but we cannot take them back. The damage done might also be irreparable.
Paul Holland
