Prayer 25

My Lord and my guardian,
protect my heart from reckless tongues
and the invisible portals where compliments convert to flattery. Because pleasant words are powerful opiates that give speakers easy power - an easy power that can intoxicate even the best people, until they are wielding it
to control, to use up, and to ruin unsuspecting hearts.
Flattery is a deceptive force that warps and perverts the holy physics of the spirit.
Protect my heart from the frozen tongues of flattery.
And if I should be tempted to flatter,
prick me with a pin, punch me in the gut, poke me in the eye;
keep me from committing the pathetic compromise of flattery.
(Psalm 12:3, Pr. 26:28, 1 Thess. 2:5)