Quit 'Yapping' - The Danger of Too Many Words (Proverbs 10:19)
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Proverbs 10:19
When words are many, transgression is not lacking,
but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
The past few days we’ve talked about the grace that comes from giving, but today we’re seeing that sometimes the best thing to give is actually nothing at all.
As we’ve talked about many times with Proverbs, we know the book is about wisdom. And Proverbs 10:19 shows us that the wise man or woman knows when to keep their mouth shut. They know when to stop running their mouths.
This verse is showing us there is far greater potential to sin the more you talk! There just is.
I’m sure each of you can think of a time when you said a little too much, and you ran your mouth straight into trouble, and straight into sin. I know for me this is a convicting verse because I love to talk! I just do.
So often I have run myself into some dreadful interactions as I’ve said things that I shouldn’t have said, all because I was either too excited to run my mouth or too afraid to stop its running and sit in the quiet, awkward stillness of conversation – the classic ‘Iiiiiiiiii’m going to keep talking because I feel like our conversation has stalled and I don’t want the awkward silence’.
You know what we call all of this nowadays? ‘Yapping’. I yap. You yap. We all yap. And sometimes we’re professional yappers. We’re pros at talking too much.
But there’s wisdom in restraining our lips and remaining silent.
Even the language used here in this verse reveals that you might have something to say, but there’s wisdom sometimes in holding that back – in restraining your tongue.
It’s a verse like this one that causes me to reflect on how much I’ve been yapping in conversation recently and to do two things with that:
To praise God that He bore the sins of my vain and extensive vocabulary, cleansing me from every careless word I’ve ever spoken.
To ask the Lord to give me a heart that can discern when to speak up and when to sit silent – to help me restrain my tongue and my words, that I might not sin, but speak words that – as Paul says in Ephesians 4 – ‘give grace to those who listen’.
So where have you seen this in your own life?
Have your words ever gotten you in trouble?
Is there a specific situation where you need wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent?
Let’s pray through those thoughts and this verse today.
