From Jeffrey R. Holland and his book “For Times of Trouble”:
Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offering of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me thy judgments.
Sometimes we are forced to say the right things, as if righteousness could be coerced. In a court, for instance, we are under oath to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Early in our lives our parents told us to tell the truth, or to apologize for a misdeed, or to say “I’m sorry.” Required expressions have their place, but how much more when, of our own volition, we offer the Lord and others “the freewill offerings of [our] mouth.” These might include—but are not limited to—words of love, words of kindness, words of patience, words of compassion.
We make a freewill offering of our mouth every time we offer a prayer that is honest and from the heart. We make a freewill offering of our mouth every time we bear testimony or teach a truth. Furthermore, we can give such expressions even more freely and generously than we do. We can tell those near to us that we love them, that they mean everything to us, and that life would not be as sweet and sacred without their companionship. We can speak courteously to the stranger in the store and the fellow driving the car in the land of traffic. We can open our mouths in taking time for those who know nothing of what we believe or what we teach.
In sacred places we speak sacred words, and we sometimes do that at a sacred alter. How wonderful that such truth would never be forced from our lips, that love would never have to be extracted from us, that forgiveness would never be granted by us only because we “had to.” Freewill offerings come from the heart. That is where our words should come from—quickly, and generously and often. They ought to reflect our devotion to God—freely. ~~Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble ~Spiritual Solace from Psalms~ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012),
