Proverbs 17:27-28

The truly wise person restrains his words,
and the one who stays calm is discerning.
Even a fool who remains silent is considered wise,
and the one who holds his tongue is deemed discerning.

I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t realize just how many proverbs there were that spoke about not speaking. I knew they were there, but there are so many of them. I’m also going to tell you that, this has become something that is high on my radar now. I am more aware than ever of the people in my life who have a habit of saying too much.

One thing I’ve observed is: when you talk too much, you say too much. At some point during the course of the profuse refuse protruding from your mouth, there is going to be some junk come out that you shouldn’t say. The more words that come out of your mouth, the higher the likelihood of you saying something dumb.

It’s pretty simple math, really. If you’re not good with words, then you should really limit how many words you say. If you have a tendency of saying stupid things, then you should restrain yourself from saying very much. If you have a tendency to brag when you talk, then you should talk less. The more words you say, the higher the probability you’re going to say something wrong or foolish or dumb.

It’s a literal word problem. Except, you don’t solve the problem with the words. You solve the problem by cutting out words. If you do, you’ll start to notice something…other people have good ideas…often times others have ideas that are beter than yours. If you can just shut your mouth, you might be able to learn something. You are not the only one who knows things about stuff. There are other people who know stuff. There are other people who know more stuff than the things you know. But, you don’t know that because you never shut your mouth.

Solve the word problem.

Even if you’re a fool, if you use fewer words, you will have the appearance of being wise. And, as you’ve heard, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt.” When you talk too much, you say too much.