A Mind of It's Own
If you have ever had your teeth cleaned professionally or had any dental work done, you know this thing has a mind of its own.
Once thought to be the strongest muscle in the body, it is actually made up of 8 different muscles that intertwine with each other.
It is a muscular organ, divided into two parts, a front part, and a back part.
The left and right sides are also separated along most of its length.
It manipulates food for chewing and swallowing and is the primary organ of taste.
The upper surface is covered by taste buds housed in numerous lingual papillae.
It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva and is richly supplied with nerves and blood vessels.
It serves as a natural means of cleaning the teeth.
A major function is the enabling of speech in humans and vocalization in other animals.
It is the tongue.
medicinenet.com offers a few fun facts about your tongue and taste buds.
1) The average tongue is 3 inches long. The Guinness World Record is 3.97 inches.
2) Your tongue has between 2,000 and 4,000 taste buds.
3) You cannot see your taste buds. Those little pink and white bumps you see on your tongue are papillae, hair-like projections that our taste buds rest atop. Each has an average of six taste buds buried inside its surface. Amazing!
Here is something I did not know about until today. We have taste buds in other places besides our tongues!
4) There are taste cells in the back of your throat, on your epiglottis (that flap of cartilage in the mouth at the back of the tongue), your nose and sinuses, all the way down the throat to the upper part of the esophagus.
If you gain weight, so does your tongue!
5) The human tongue has a high percentage of fat. A study in the journal Sleep, showed that having a larger tongue with higher levels of fat might be a risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea.
6) Your tongue print is as unique as a fingerprint.
7) Your tongue can say a lot about your health.
Without our tongue we are not verbalizing much. Certainly, there are other ways to communicate, however, without the tongue, you cannot form words.
Here is a question for you. If you have the gift of speech, how do you use that gift?
Ephesians 4:29 tells us not to let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths.
In fact, it goes on to say only let words come out of your mouth that are helpful for building others up according to their needs AND that it may benefit those who listen.
What we say, how we say it does affect others. How are we going to use our tongue?
Jesus said it’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, that defiles a man. Matthew 15:11
What we say not only matters to who we say it to; it not only matters who might be listening and overhearing our words, but apparently, we are judged by our words as well.
If we drop down to verse 15, we see Peter asking Jesus to explain what He meant.
“So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man...” Matthew 15:16-20 NKJV
I was just reading the following verses in a study we did a few days ago. It is such a good reminder to keep striving to be a good person. Train your thoughts.
Philippians 4:8, “… whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
It starts with our thoughts. If we train our thoughts, and the way we think, and the things we think about, it will naturally facilitate the change we want to see.
Train your tongue. Train your heart. Change typically does not happen overnight but keep training.
Is it true? Is it honorable? Is it just? Is it pure? Is it lovely? Commendable? Excellent? Worthy of praise?
Yes? Then think about those things, the tongue will follow.
by Jeanette Stark – Wednesday, September 21, 2022