Living His Word

Proverbs 17:28 ERV: Silent fools seem wise. They say nothing and appear to be smart.

If you can keep your mouth shut, the chances of making a fool of yourself diminish greatly. If you can keep your mouth shut, you may even be thought of as wise and smart. After all, no one can really tell what’s on your mind when you remain silent. Everyone around you may be speaking their mind and revealing their foolishness, but by remaining silent the thought eventually occurs to them that you may be above all of that, that you may even be above them.

The great temptation, however, is to reveal everything you know and every opinion you have in conversations. The great temptation is to try and impress people with your knowledge and influence them with your opinions. If you can’t keep your mouth shut, however, the chances of making a fool of yourself increase greatly. You may even be thought of as the very opposite of wise and smart. People don’t usually enjoy being around someone who is always trying to impress them with their knowledge and always trying to influence them with their opinions.

It would be wrong, on the other hand, to interpret this proverb as saying that we should never again speak anything in a conversation. If that were the case, all conversation and fruitful communication would cease. The point is that we should be wise about when to reveal our wisdom. We should only join the conversation when it will add something to it, rather than subtract something from it. If the only point of our conversations is to impress and influence people, then it won’t be too long before their opinion of us begins to diminish.

Today, ask the Lord to help you overcome the need to dominate conversations. With His help, you will not have to force yourself into them in order to be heard; you will be asked to join in. You will also leave room to learn something from someone else.