Or if you have plotted evil,
put your hand on your mouth"
Proverbs 30:32
I've read this verse hundreds of times, but today it made me pause (Most of the time I've just read it quickly and gone to the next verse).
The writer lumps together two types of behavior: bragging about myself and planning to do bad stuff.
"Tooting our own horns" is encouraged in our society. And now that i think of it, so is planning evil. Both of these activities center on self -- what I want to do; why my world needs to change no matter how it happens because it isn't how I want it; the end justifies the means. It is bad even if you just plot evil and don't go through with it. What we do in thought is a sin as much as what we do physically (though I will say it is a whole lot easier and less messy to repent from a bad thought than from a thought that is followed through. I say that because this is the ideal thing the enemy likes to use to get you to go over the edge -- He'll tell you, well you've already done it in your mind. What's the difference? Might as well do it for real. Sin is sin....DON'T LISTEN TO THIS).
Guard your thoughts, your words and your actions today.