Welcome to the Keep It Shut miniseries on chapters 3 and 4 of Karen Ehman’s new book, Keep It Shut.

Click here for week 1.
Click here for week 2.

Karen is a self professed ‘gap filler’. Do you know what that means? It means that from the time she was in grade school she had an innate ability to speak when there is a lull in the conversation. A gap. She filled it. Instead of that earning her high marks on her report card, it got her into trouble as it was pointed out that she needed to improve her listening skills! Are you a gap filler? I know I certainly am. It drives me crazy to have awkward silence in the car or at the dinner table. I gab and gab and the worst part? I know when I’m doing it. Often I end up just talking about nothing while the kids stare into their dinner plates or at some far away place out the window. It’s exhausting to be honest.

Karen has developed a few rules of thumb for this gift of gab dilemma. During her bible studies, she has decided to only raise her hand once every third question which gives others in the group a chance to participate. She also now pauses before she pipes up. This means when the person she is speaking with takes a pause, she doesn’t interrupt or interject before that person has had a chance to finish their thought. I think this is great advice. Here’s more good advice from the apostle James 1:19-20…

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

In order to stop filling the gap, we need to heed a few simple warnings – don’t speak too much, don’t speak too soon, don’t speak without first listening (boy, do I need this one) and don’t speak at all. Wait, what? Don’t speak at all is an option? Genius. Karen has a nice way of explaining these concepts in chapter 3. I love this quote she included from Publilius Syrus who was a Roman writer, “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence”.

The challenge for chapter 3 is for 24 hours to not give your opinion unless directly asked. Instead, ask the other person questions to try to really understand what they are saying and other that, keep your thoughts to yourself. Can we do it? I know we can.

Chapter 4 focuses on zipping our mouths and praying more. Instead of doing 19 things to process a problem in our lives, why don’t we pray first? Why don’t we make prayer a daily priority and become prayer warriors? Spending much needed time in prayer gives us a chance connect with God and usually after connecting with God, we feel better. We are little slower to anger. We are more forgiving and patient. Our words come out more smoothly and less harsh. Devoting time to pray and sticking with a prayer schedule can be difficult. Often times we start out praying and then our thoughts just lead us in another direction. That direction might be the grocery list or something pressing at work. It seems we need some help focusing on how to pray.

Karen suggests several ways in this chapter on how to be a good prayer warrior including praying over the items on our to do list, being intentional about our time with God, reading and writing our thoughts down (devotionals and journal keeping) and making a recording of scripture to play when we are driving around town. All of these items will bring us closer to God and affect our daily moods and behaviors.

Let’s try to carve out our own God time and stick to it this week!