You can read books and hear about how you should pray from the Bible. Funny thing is, there are certain scriptures that you never hear people use when they pray. Maybe this is one that we should pray for… often. I’ve got three versions in case you don’t believe the first to be accurate.
Ps. 141:3
Help me, Lord, to keep my mouth shut and my lips sealed. TLB
Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. KJV
O Jehovah, set a guard to my mouth; keep watch on the door of my lips. TIB
Why would David pray to keep his mouth and his lips closed? It seems redundant. Let’s break it down a little. David asks God to place or appoint a guard for his mouth. Guards are meant to protect the innocent or keep the criminals locked up. In other words, David wants the guard to keep the door from opening inappropriately and allowing ‘evil’ out and he wants it to protect others from his vile tongue. David then asks the Lord to protect the ‘swinging’ of his lips. It sounds to me like he wants the Lord to keep him from saying the wrong things. We all say the wrong thing sometimes whether intentionally spoken or in the heat of the moment. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. (Jam.
Or maybe David thought he just needed to speak less often. Sometimes I wonder if I speak too much. I certainly speak far more than when I was a very shy youth who hardly spoke to anyone! We should listen more to others and really hear them… ah, but I digress. David prayed that the Lord would help him to guard his mouth and words. Shouldn’t we all do the same?