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Based on their new book Lasting Ever, Rebecca St. James and her husband Cubbie Fink share how they have experienced God’s everlasting love throughout the highs and lows of life.
Home » Episodes » Focus on the Family with Jim Daly » The Power of Silence: How Speaking Less Can Benefit You
John Fuller: Today, on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, Pastor Ted Cunningham explains how exercising restraint, when it comes to airing your opinions, can actually give you more influence.
Ted Cunningham: Bring your best, your influence, your words and your energy. Bring your best to what matters most. That’s why restraint is so important.
John: Welcome to today’s show. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: You know, John, Ted is one of our favorite guests here, uh, because he does such a great job of combining humor with biblical truth. And today’s message will be no exception. Ted is the founding pastor of Woodland Hills Family Church in Branson, Missouri and he’s also a prolific author and a part-time comedian.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Uh, he and his wife Amy, have been married for over 20 years and have two grown children.
John: And Ted was recently here on our campus to speak to our staff. What a joy. We all, uh, had a great time getting to spend some quality time with him. Uh, here now is Ted Cunningham on today’s episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Ted: One of the things I’m learning in marriage, but not just marriage, in my parenting and in all of my relationships, online, in the workplace, is how to practice restraint, how to restrain my words. Uh, Christians are, are scared of this word I think today because they think restraint and they think we’re trying, we’re being silenced or cancel culture is coming after us or, or we think of the silent treatment. That’s not at all what we’re gonna talk about today. We’re talking about restraining our words and actually giving our words more power. In Proverbs 18:21, we read, “The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
We live in a world with a lot of noise and people want you to add your voice to every topic and issue of the day. People want you to chime in and state your beliefs or opinions and then you’re misunderstood or misrepresented. The cool thing today is you can have an opinion and you don’t even need to be informed on what you’re talking about.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: We all know that. Cancel culture has many Christians speaking up out of fear of being silenced. Some obnoxiously vent every day on every issue of the day, but the Bible calls us to a restraint that adds influence and power to our voices. And that’s what I wanna share a little bit today, just so our relationships at home, in our marriage, workplace and online and just in our everyday conversations, how do we add more influence to our voices? In Proverbs 17:28, we read, “Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent and discerning if they hold their tongues.” Elizabeth Elliott put it this way, “Never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: Mark Twain said, and I have a friend that has this on a magnet on his refrigerator, he reads it every day, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: We’re not talking about restraining our words to silence us. We’re talking about restraining our words so we can be like that old commercial EF Hutton. Many of you might not remember the commercial EF Hutton or you’ve never seen that commercial, but speaking on financial management and getting financial management advice, you could be in a busy airport or a busy restaurant, and when the name EF Hutton was mentioned, the commercial went silent. Everybody in the room went silent and they leaned in because they wanted to hear, “What kind of advice is EF Hutton giving today?”
Wouldn’t this be something that every time a Christian opens their mouth, people lean in because they want to hear what this person has to say? Restraint gives us that opportunity. We should be known for boldly proclaiming what we believe, but we should also be known for our restraint and compassion. You see, when you speak out on everything all the time, we lose credibility with the most important things. And it’s why I’m grateful to be at a place today where you focus on the family and you have a lane that you have chosen and that you are staying in.
So I wanna give you some practical ways today that you can show restraint in all of your relationships, conversations at home and in the workplace. I’m gonna give you a five and then we’re gonna look at, “When do we push back? There is a time to speak up.” So we’ll look at when to remain silent and when to speak up. Number one, and this is profound for me as a husband, you don’t have to say everything you think.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: You don’t have to say everything that pops into your brain. I celebrate 28 years of marriage this week and I can tell you I’m learning that more and more, to put that filter on and not say everything that pops into my head. Proverbs 18:2 reads, “Fools find no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions.” The Hebrew term for that is Facebook.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: We live in a day, and social media has given us the ability, to share our opinions without sticking around for a conversation. And we practice very little restraint and we wanna share our opinion. If I were in this room at the end of today and walked by this table and just heard the topic that you were speaking on and I walked by and just threw my opinion at you and kept walking, you would say, “That’s rude. That’s impolite.” And we all could get better at not saying everything we think, but also not posting everything that pops into our brains. Practicing online restraint. I’ll give you a few just practical ways to do it. Don’t post every thought. Don’t post when you’re mad.
When you’re frustrated and you have something y- you wanna say, pass it by a family member or a friend who’s less angry than you. Pass it by a trusted friend. Pass all text, emails and posts for that matter by a reliable friend or family member and spend a little more time educating yourself before you become a speaker on the subject, showing that type of restraint. Number two, this is a good one for the workplace, let others praise you. You don’t have to say everything you think. Another thing to do with restraint is let someone else brag on you, your achievements and your accomplishments. Proverbs 27:2 says, “Let someone else praise you and not your own mouth, an outsider and not your own lips.”
Number three, be the one where rumors come to die. Develop a reputation where people don’t even wanna share things with you because they know you’re not gonna feed into it. I love this Proverb, 18:8, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels. They go down to the inmost parts.” Yell up to me real quick. What’s your favorite candy bar?
Audience: Snickers. Snickers.
Ted: E- everybody always yell Snickers. To me, the peanuts just get in the way. I love Milky Way. I’m passionate about Milky Way. And I don’t know why. I, I can’t tell you the last time I ate a full-sized Milky Way bar. It just feels irresponsible to me.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: I go into the gas station though and I see all of ’em, I’m like, “I would love that Milky Way. Oh, look at there’s a shareable size that sounds fun,” and, but I don’t ever do it. But you know, the fun size ones, I can down five or six of those in one setting. No problem.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: Absolutely no problem. Uh, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong when I eat the small ones. That’s a great example for us of what a choice morsel is. I would never slander someone, I would never tear someone down, but, you know, that little, that, that little, that’s not … I’m just gonna share this one little thing. Proverbs 26:20 and 21 says, “Without wood, a fire goes out. Without a gossip, a quarrel dies down. As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife.” Show restraint when it comes to rumors, those choice morsels.
Number four, this has been, this is one we have to correct with a lot of, uh, marriage teaching, especially in the premarital, uh, department. Number four, when angry, stay silent. When angry, stay silent. Now we read this verse and we’ve shared this with couples in premarital and I don’t think we fully understand this verse. And if you have a study Bible, you’re gonna see, there’s gonna be a little letter next to Ephesians 4:26, and I want you to go down and see where that letter takes you, but here’s Ephesians 4:26, “In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you’re still angry.” We have taught premarital couples, “That verse means you should stay up and fight until it’s resolved. You just stay up and you go at it until somebody wins and that is not at all what Ephesians 4:26 is teaching.”
If you go down in your study Bible, you’ll go to Psalm 4:4. This is actually what Paul is quoting, this Psalm, “Be angry and do not sin. Ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent.” Boy, we’ve been teaching that wrong a lot of ways for a long time. How many of you though know after a good night’s rest where you didn’t go at it, duke it out the night before, you didn’t have to have your last word in there and the final say, how many of you know that when you wake up the next morning, “What, what were we fighting about? That just didn’t seem all that big of a deal.”
Number five, this is a big one, let others share without interruption. Don’t be a hijacker of a conversation. I tend to do this. You’re telling me your story and I’ll just be honest with you. If, you, you know that person in your life that says often,
To make a long story short”?
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: You know who says, “To make a long story short”? The person who doesn’t know how to make a long story short.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: And they say that to give themselves another five to 10 minutes and, and your inner voice is screaming, “How about to make a long story over? Let’s get this, let’s get this thing over. Land the plane, please.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: “This is going on and on and on.” Okay, so I’m the type that, when I feel like your story’s losing steam, I wanna add to it or just, “End yours and let me kick in with mine real quick cause I think it’s really gonna be riveting.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: Uh, Proverbs 18:13, “To answer before listening, that is folly and shame.” I was convicted of this years ago in my marriage. I, I told Amy, I go, “I’ve gotta become a better listener. I know that I, I listen real fast. I want you to talk real fast. I gotta slow it way down.” And, and we were at a family camp with our friends Jill and David Jones and we were at dinner and, and David, he’s very, um, he’s a great question asker. David said, “Ted, what’s God teaching? What do you learning?” And I, I remember I was, I was at a very sensitive, soft place. I said, David, “I’ve decided and I know God wants me to be a better listener. I need to learn to listen better.” And my friend David looks at me and he goes, “That will be refreshing.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: What are people thinking of you on the other side of you? You’ve heard that. And I don’t wanna miss moments in life because I’m always running my mouth. I don’t wanna be that person that’s posting every day, every thought that I have, so that when they see me on the, the scroll through, they’re like, “Oh, no, not again. This guy’s ranting again. He’s venting again.” Well, we can’t talk restraint and not talk about when to take a stand or push back or speak up. And that’s what I wanna spend some time doing. When do you push back? When do you walk away and show this restraint? When do you take your stand? When do you back down? When do you speak up? When do you remain silent?
And maybe your way hasn’t been working in a relationship in a marriage or maybe with one of your kids. Maybe it isn’t working because you’re pushing back all the time on everything. Maybe your way isn’t working because you, you never push back, you never speak up, you never share what you’re thinking or feeling and, and you’re always walking away from everything and everyone. I’ve developed for me, and maybe this will be helpful for you, this is for my marriage, for my family, this is for our church, it’s for engaging in our culture, a framework for pushing back. And I have a series of questions, four questions that I answer to decide to choose whether or not I am going to push back, take my stand and speak up on this one.
Number one very important question, “Is this a big deal?” A lot of things are no-big-deal moments and I need to walk away. If I don’t answer it with a, “Yes, this is a big deal,” okay, then I don’t, I don’t push back. I don’t take my stand. Here’s a big one, “Am I the one to confront it?” You see something happening in a store with a family and you’re like, “Ooh, that needs to be dealt with. Something bad’s going on here. That needs to be dealt with. That needs to be, needs to be confronted. It’s a big deal. So that’s a yes.” Am I the one to confront it? No, I get to keep walking. I’m not the one to confront it. “Is it urgent? Is it urgent? Is this something that can wait a few days? And then how urgent will this be a few days from now?”
And I love this one, “Am I emotionally ready for this? Can I emotionally, uh, prepare myself to walk into this meeting or into this confrontation?” I, every Saturday morning, I call into a radio show in Branson, Missouri. If you’re not familiar with Branson, Missouri, we are the live country music capital of the United States of America and this country music radio show I call into and I do a devotional for 15 or 20 minutes. Well, I was, I, I went into the studio live one day to do it and the regular hosts were gone. And, uh, a guy was there, his name is Josh, he’s become a dear friend. And something got into him that week. I don’t know exactly what, but he was pretty frustrated with the hypocrisy of the church and the hypocrisy of Christians.
And he looked at me as he was all fired up and he says, “Ted, doesn’t it say somewhere in the Good Book …” I always know we’re gonna have a great conversation after someone calls it the Good Book. He goes, “Doesn’t it say we should judge everyone or judge no one at all?” I’m like, “Okay. Alright. He just majorly misquoted scripture. Is this a big deal? Yes. Am I the one to confront it? I’m the only one in studio. Is it urgent? We’re live on the air.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: “Do I have the energy for it? Doesn’t matter. We need to address it right now.” See, not everything, not everything needs confronting. Some things need confronting, but it doesn’t need to be confronted by you, right? Not everyone needs to be confronted. Not everything you scroll past today needs your voice added to it.
John: You’re listening to Pastor Ted Cunningham on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And you can get a CD of his entire presentation with extra content for a gift of any amount to the ministry of Focus on the Family. Just call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. That’s 800-232-6459 or donate and request that CD at our website, focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Let’s return now to more from Ted Cunningham.
Ted: Now, you probably have family members or friends who wake up every day outraged, just like looking for a fight. And you woke up in a great mood. You’re not looking for anything. You, you weren’t picking a fight, you weren’t going after a fight, you didn’t wake up looking for one, but you had this family member or friend that constantly drags you into it. What do you do? Don’t take the bait. Don’t take the bait. But I, we’re constantly having to start everything before we talk about somebody. We have to start with this. I don’t agree with this person on everything and I, I told Amy, I go, “You know what if we started going to parties and we walked up to people and I always introduce you as, ‘Hey, (laughs) I don’t agree with her on everything …’”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: “‘ … but this is my wife?’ Isn’t it assumed we don’t agree on everything? Isn’t it assumed that, that there are gonna be things we disagree on?” And people are like sending that bait out there to get you. Just don’t take it. In 1 Peter 2:23, we get our model, our model is in Christ Jesus, “When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.” Gary Thomas in his great book, When to Walk Away, has been a great resource for me in ministry and engaging in our culture today. Gary says this, “Jesus never appears desperate, manipulative or controlling. As if when people didn’t agree with Him, His feelings would be hurt.” And I love this, “Jesus mission-focused and others-centered.”
This is why restraint is so important. What is the mission God has you on? What has God called you to do and where are people asking you to raise your voice that will distract you from the mission God has for you? This is freeing. Restraint is freeing and allows you to be mission-focused and others-centered. Says, “Jesus is mission-focused and others-centered to His deepest core.” And this is why when I’m scrolling and I see a post from Focus on the Family, I can stop and I can listen and I can read. Why? Because I know it’s gonna be focused on the family, which is a similar mission that God has given me. I know there’s not gonna be random stuff on there that’s going on in our culture, our society that, that would take focus off of the focus on the family.
So when we get this, here’s what restraint does for us, and I wanna encourage you, save your energy and influence for what matters most. Save your words, save your voice for what matters most. This past spring, a church north of us, uh, uh, went through a pretty difficult time. They had a, a struggle and it, it went viral and people started talking about it. And, and whenever something’s happening in another church, everybody, “Ted, what do you think? Ted, did you see this?” People sending me tweets and Facebook posts and Instagram posts, “Ted, Did you see this? Ted, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think?”
And I told our church, I said, “Is it a big deal what happened up there? Yes. Am I the one to confront it? (laughs) No. Praising my Father in heaven I’m not the one to confront it.” I told our church, “I, you know why I can’t go deal with all of that and confront that up there and why you can’t either? We have to save our energy for what’s gonna happen at our church next week.” People are like, “What’s gonna happen?” “I don’t know, but something always is gonna happen and we have to be ready for it. If we’re going to pour in our energy and, and voice and influence and resources up there, we won’t be ready for what God has for us here.” Bring your best, your influence, your words and your energy. Bring your best to what matters most. That’s why restraint is so important.
Psychologists have this term for it if you’ve studied this. They, they call it emotional flooding. We’re all emotionally flooded. You know, psychologically, physically, emotionally, we’re drained and overwhelmed because we weren’t designed to take in all the information and speak to everything that’s being thrown at us these days. So we’re flooded. And you go to your kid’s game, give you a few more practical ways here. You go to your kid’s game and you’re having a great time. The most important thing for you in that moment is being there for your child. There’s a time-out or halftime and you decide just to jump on your phone. You were great until you jumped on your phone. You started scrolling and that one person that drives you crazy said something that you didn’t like, and all of a sudden, “Whoa, chuchuchuchuchu.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: And now you’re yelling at the refs, you’re yelling at the coaches, you’re screaming a little bit louder and like, “What happened to mom?” Nothing that you all did. It was something that flooded her by getting online. You’re on a date night. Your date night’s the most important thing in that moment and, and your spouse gets up to use the restroom and you’re like, “Oh, this gives me two to three minutes to just check and see how the world’s doing.” Your spouse comes back and you’re ticked, you’re frustrated. Stay present. Don’t add your voice. Don’t give away your influence. Show restraint.
You’re at a staff meeting. You get up from a staff meeting, you use the restroom and you’ve all been there. I don’t wanna say too much, but you’ve walked past the stalls in the restroom and everybody’s on their phone. It’s just a cubicle for phone work. It’s all it is.
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: And this person was fine in the meeting until they get back from the bathroom and you’re like, “What happened?” They got online and they got flooded. I have a pastor friend who got off social media altogether. He’s not on it anymore. And when he was telling me this, I told him, I go, “Who gave you permission to do that, you know, just to get off social media whenever you want?” He goes, “Ted, I had to because I found that I was preaching mad every time I got up to preach, which was the most important thing for me to do. I was flooded. I was frustrated.” If you push back on everyone, you’ll influence no one. If you push back on everything, you won’t be taken seriously on anything. Is there anybody in the room named Karen? Can I just see your hand?
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: On behalf of Focus on the Family and every … I wanna apologize to you. I don’t know why we chose your name and not Sue or Margaret or Betty, but we went after, we used the name Karen over the last four years referring to a person who is too much. Uh, look at, you’re receiving my apology, aren’t you? Thank you. I do this now around the country. I apologize to the Karens. They come up to me. Some of ’em come up weeping, “Thank you. No one’s ever done this.”
Audience: (laughs)
Ted: “I want my name back.” Proverbs 25:17 says this, “Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house. Too much of you and they will hate you.” You’re loving, you’re kind, you’re generous, you have a lot of thoughtful things to say, but maybe sometimes you’re just too much. You’re too much. You don’t have to show up to every fight you’re invited to. And one of the reasons you can’t show up to every fight you’re invited to is because you have a mission and you must stay focused and give your voice and influence to that. 2 Corinthians 5:20 reads, “We are Christ ambassadors and God is making His appeal through us.”
What has Jesus done in your life? Cause here’s what we know and the research points to this, people want to hear those conversations. And I don’t wanna shut down those conversations because I’m yap-yap-yapping away over here. I don’t wanna miss moments where I see the Holy Spirit working in someone’s life because I’m running my mouth. I don’t wanna close down rich conversations about who Jesus is and what He’s done for me because I’m too much.
John: Hmm, such wise words there from Pastor Ted Cunningham. He spoke at a recent Focus staff gathering and it’s been a privilege to air, uh, that message today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Jim: John, I love this message and there’s really nothing I can add to it except to underline Ted’s final point that we need to be sensitive to how the Holy Spirit is working in a conversation and not override what God might be doing because we’re talking too much. As an extrovert, that’s (laughs) really important for me. And Ted told a great story about that from a trip he took to Alaska that we couldn’t include today because of our time limitations. So get the CD of the show to hear that extra content and maybe share this message with your family as well.
John: Yeah, I would think this is the kind of message that would play well for others. There might be someone in your circle who needs to measure their words more carefully, especially on social media. And uh, of course we’ll send that CD out to you, which has the entire presentation from Ted for a donation of any amount to the ministry. And you can make that donation and request the CD when you call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY, 800-232-6459 or donate and request the CD at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: And if you’d like to discuss this topic a bit more, give us a call. Our friendly staff would be delighted to hear your thoughts and pray with you. And if needed, you can also request a call back from one of our caring Christian counselors. We’re here to serve you. Thanks to the donors that provide the resources to do that.
John: Yeah, our friendly staff would love to hear from you. Give us a call at 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY, 800-232-6459 or you can donate online and request your CD featuring Ted Cunningham at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Next time, mom and counselor, Kristen Hatton offers great insights on parenting younger kids with the teen years in mind.
Kristen Hatton: Our children need to experience trials. It builds resilience and trust in the Lord and growth. But if we are overparenting, then we’re overcontrolling and trying to take care of all those things for them and so we need to let go a little bit and come back to the middle of, “Let them experience life.”
John: On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Ted Cunningham is the founding pastor of Woodland Hills Family Church in Branson, Missouri. He and his wife, Amy, have been married for 27 years and have two children, Corynn and Carson. He is the author of several books including Greater Joy Twogether and Trophy Child. Ted coauthored four books with the late Dr. Gary Smalley including From Anger to Intimacy and The Language of Sex. He is a comedian on the Date Night Comedy Tour and a speaker at churches and events across the country. Ted is a graduate of Liberty University and Dallas Theological Seminary. Learn more about Ted by visiting his church’s website.
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