Sweet Speech - Human PEZ Dispensers

I have a friend in Dallas named Grant who loves PEZ Candy - or at least the containers that the candy comes in. He had a very large collection of the containers and often ate the candy just to prepare the container for storage! Often for gifts, he would receive a new item for his ever-growing collection.

I don't know if you are familiar with PEZ, but according to their website they have been around for more than 70 years and began as a condensed peppermint candy. All of that is interesting, but not the point of this story.

You see, the interesting thing about the PEZ dispenser is that it is a plastic box with a special lid that is made to look like a head (of an animal, movie character, etc.). When you press on the back of the head, it tilts back and opens around where the mouth should be and out comes a sweet little piece of candy.

This past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend our state evangelism conference and heard Michael Kelley of LifeWay Christian Resources describe the Christian's speech using the analogy that Christians ought to be like human PEZ dispensers spitting out the sweet words of encouragement and love for the fellowship of believers like the dispenser opens up to reveal a sweet confection for the taste buds! As I dwelled on this analogy he gave in passing, I came to this nugget of wisdom in Proverbs:

Pleasant words are a honeycomb: sweet to the taste and health to the body. (Proverbs 16:24, HCSB)

Did you catch what our pleasant words are? They are two things. First, they are sweet to the taste. Sweet to the taste implies that the initial impression and use of the words is something pleasant and enjoyable. Pause just for a moment, think of the words you spoke to your coworker standing by the coffee pot this morning, or your spouse as you clamored around the sink brushing your teeth. What about the words spoken to the child running late for school or even the words to the dog demanding more food before you left the house this morning? Were your words sweet to the ears of the hearer? Were they enjoyable and pleasant?

The second aspect is a little more long term. Pleasant words are health to the body. Recent studies make us weary of the long term effects of too much sugar, but let's run with the illustration provided in the context in which excess wasn't known in the way we know it today. Honey, and the sugar in it, would have been a building block of the ancient diet providing necessary energy and strength and overall health to the body. Look again at the words you have spoken today. Will they linger long in the palate of the soul and bring health to the recipient? They are to build them up, leave the recipient stronger than when you were silent. They are to give energy, not leave them languished in the lost luster of spoiled speech.

Regardless of your self-examination of the words already spoken, you have the blessing in front of you to speak the sweet words of a human PEZ dispenser. Go ahead, try it. Imagine what the world would look like if our churches were filled with a life-size collection of sweet speaking saved saints! That would truly be the Collectors dream!