Which happens? Salty to Fresh or Fresh to Salty?

Two streams coming together

With it [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers, these things ought not to be so.  Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?  Can a fig tree,

my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? 

Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

James 3:9-12

My sister-in-law lives on a brackish bayou in Florida.  A fresh water stream mixes with the salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  What do you think the water tastes like in that stream?  You're right; it's salty.  No matter how hard you might try to make it taste like the sweet waters of the stream, it still tastes salty, like the waters of the Gulf.  Oh, it may be a bit "watered down," but it is still salty.

My son-in-law loves to propagate plants from little stems of existing plants.  We have spots all over our yard with small pots of propagated plants, and some lovely hydrangeas that he has propagated from other hydrangeas.  But from a hydrangea comes a hydrangea, even though I would love for him to propagate a rose from that bush.  Plants produce the fruit of the plant.  A fig tree cannot produce olives, just as a hydrangea cannot produce a rose bush.

We are much like a brackish stream when we speak out of both sides of our mouths.  I have a feeling that when we curse our brother, all of our "blessing" the Lord may just sound like watered-down cursing to Him.  And much like the fig tree or hydrangea, what we are is shown by the fruit of our mouths.

As the psalmist prayed in Psalm 141:3, this is my prayer, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!"

May it be so,

Gloria