Monday, February 23, 2009

Day 23. Folly

Proverbs 12:23
A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly.

One of my favorite prayers before I talk with people is "God, keep my words few and true." Few because I tend to ramble and true because I tend to exaggerate. And by exaggerate I of course mean lie, which is something I wrote about yesterday. The other way I've tried to regulate this fire hose mouth of mine and prevent my heart from blurting out folly is by trying to see how many questions people ask me in a given day. The truth is that on most days, no one asks me a question because I'm so busy rapid fire talking that they never need to ask me anything. I've already told them everything. I've already blurted out every possible thought and detail and idea I have so there's no reason for them to ever ask me a question. Which is foolish.

How many questions a day do people ask you?

8 comments:

heartafire said...

Something I always like about your blog, and one of the things that I think keeps people commenting, is the fact that you do ask questions.

Even when the questions you ask don't turn out to be the ones people actually answer in their comments, it does invite discussion.

Personally, I get asked about 900 questions a day, because I have children and I'm a SAHM. Also I live with a man who is a "stranger in his own home." (Honey where's the extra paper towel? Where do we keep the lightbulbs? Where are my wool socks? Where did these children come from?)

I don't think those were the kind of questions you were talking about, though.

The other kind of questions? Not many. Your post as usual, leads to good thought.

Donna said...

heartafire and I must live in the same "zone"......the kids question zone.......

but thought provoking questions? Because I get a zillion no brainer questions to answer every day, when a question comes along that does require thought and a measured response, I'm usually not prepared to slow down to give it the proper consideration....

Tracy, mom2many said...

SAHM here too, but like you, with a fire hose mouth (now that's a metaphor!). I do get asked a lot of questions but sometimes in effort to stop them I get a little.....verbose.

I continue to struggle with making sure I leave people an opening in which to share themselves. God has given me two friends with whom I must remember to ask about themselves and I must wait for the answers or I will miss out on some serious blessing. My husband is like that too, although he has learned to jump right in there more LOL.

Kendra Golden said...

The typical question I get is, "Are you finished yet?" That may be a bad sign.

Denise @ Sunflowers, Chocolate and Little Boys said...

I get asked a million and one questions each day, but that is because Im home with my 2 little ones. They are full of questions.

BTW...I just found your blog this morning and really like it....and plan to follow.

Katherine Laine said...

All too often I get asked "Are you listening?" by my friends. They know me to be somewhat of a 'spacer'.

Sylvia Goode Basham said...

Not saying this is altogether right, but my friend and I used to play this (mind?) game in college that I continue to do even now:

Whenever I'm going to be in a social setting, it's always my goal to go away with more information about the other person than he/she has about me.

There's a sense of power in that knowledge, and the funny thing I've noticed is that the more I keep my talking at bay, the wiser others think I am....all kinds of good and bad tied up in this approach, but it works for me :-) because yes, they then have to ask questions.

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