Shutting my mouth

One of the disciplines I have been working on is shutting my mouth, or put another way, holding my tongue.  I think Shrek puts it best when he says of Donkey, "Talking is easy, its getting him to shut up that's hard."  Much good can be done with my mouth, and yet so much evil.
In conversations often I do not hear what the other person is saying but just what I want to say next.  So I am trying to choose to not say that one thing that I really want to say.  This is hard, much like running intervals is hard, but it trains me in self control of my tongue.
As it says in James 3, "no man can tame the tongue, it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."  I seek to hand over to Christ the discipline of my tongue and mouth.  I seek him to be the master of my tongue.
And so when it says in Romans 12 to present our bodies as living sacrifice, this includes our mouths, and that in the same way that our tongues can praise God and so be a living sacrifice, so also our tongues and mouths can choose not to curse fellow humans and so be a living sacrifice.

Shutting my mouth can be as practical as running.  I will do it for 30 minutes a day.  Or I will do it for intervals of 5 minutes in times where it is harder for me.  Or I will be crazy and do it for a whole day.  But I do it not just to do it, and so miss the point, but I do it to train my mouth to speak only what Christ bids me to speak - only what Christ bids me to speak - that is my goal, that is me sub 2 hour marathon goal.  Neither is it impossible or easy - and I can do all things, even speak only what Christ bids me to, through Him who gives me strength. (Phil. 4:13).