My title for this devotion is Open Mouth vs Closed Mouth.

I woke up this morning to the sound of a cricket that seemed to be right in my ear. I don’t mind hearing them when they are outside and I am inside. Or if I’m outside with them. I’m not too fond (translated: I can’t stand it) when I am inside and they are too. I finally pin-pointed where it was coming from, but that thing was so loud it fooled me. It was actually outside the kitchen window. Okay, so I let it go. But the guy wouldn’t shut up! He wouldn’t take a break from rubbing his legs together. He had to continually let me know he was there. After almost 45 minutes I finally said, “Enough” and turned the outside light on and went outside. He is no more. Silence. Sweet silence!

I know he was only acting according to his nature. Just like a bullfrog bulls. A skunk skunks (badly). A bird chirps. A cricket cricks. It is his nature to announce his presence by rubbing his legs together. Unless…someone comes around. Then he actually stops. He had actually stopped letting me know he was there when I went outside but I found him hiding.

Proverbs 17:28 says, “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.” Like the old adage attributed to Abe Lincoln: “It is better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Why do I feel like I always have to say something? Why can I not just keep my mouth shut? Sometimes when I speak, I speak words of good, words that might be considered wise. But sometimes I “open mouth and insert foot.” I need to be more selective when I speak and what I speak. I don’t always have to be heard. Those people sometimes get squashed.

“Father, may I choose wisely when to open my mouth and when to close it. The cricket who kept chirping is no more. May it not be that people long for me to be no more in their presence because of my mouth.”