Karen:     In the New Testament book of James, we find these words. “When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.”

David:     I’m not a horse person like you are, Karen. And I know that in your book about the tongue medicine for mouth disease, you write about a horse you bought some decades back for our daughter, Melissa. This time together I want to begin with you reading some of what you wrote, okay?

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

Karen:     The horse I bought my daughter on her 16th birthday and that the family accused me of buying as much for myself as for Melissa, the horse was named Lady Sundown. You know what? They were right. Lady who stood 16 and a half hands high was a lovely chestnut and white pintle, part quarter horse and part thoroughbred. She was spirited but not unruly and I loved to watch her arch her neck and lift her tail as we put her through her paces in the back pasture of the four acres where she was boarded, walking trot, running trot, canter and gallop. Without a doubt owning this huge animal was a learning experience for me and for my children. We hung wide-eyed on the stable door and watched the practice precision of the ferry or as he shot her and sensed the confidence of the veterinarian as he examined her.

We became amazingly casual about shoveling manure, loading heavy bags of grain and hauling hay in the station wagon. Now one of the most beautiful things about owning Lady Sundown was the great confidence and discipline I saw developing in my teenage daughter. There’s something to be said about being responsible for a large animal. It must be fed twice a day and watered. The stalls must be cleaned and after a while the horse knows you are its owner and whinnies at greeting when you drive to the driveway and parked by the stable. The horse becomes amazingly sensitive to your desires. She reads the meaning of your body motion in the saddle, and you sense when she is flighty, ready to shy.

You know she dips her head before moving into a canter. “Whoa baby, take it easy baby. Easy, easy now lady,” you find yourself saying. And the animal understands. And you feel you have become one lovely unit of motion, horse and rider, in sync together rhythm of pounding hoof and creaking saddle. But I was reminded of perhaps the greatest lesson of all when I finally developed the confidence to take Lady Sundown on my first solo gallop. As I raced her at full speed, surprisingly smooth, with her long legs pounding beneath me and her head stretching out before me and with the sound of each row of corn in the corn field going in my ears, I suddenly thought of the words from the book of James. “For we all make many mistakes”, he wrote, “and if anyone makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, we guide their whole bodies.”

That’s from James 3. So true, all 16 and a half hands high of it. Being able to control Lady Sundown with a mouth metal with English reins and a thin chin strap gave me an enormous sense of satisfaction to be in working harmony with the huge bulk of that animal was something hard to describe. Now even more satisfying is learning to curb the tongue, wearing a bridle and bit on the mouth, so to speak. Through the years after struggling mildly with my chronic case of mouth disease, I have discovered that one of the most effective rehabilitations for the tongue is the bridle of silence. And it is only through the regular practice of silence that we can learn to refrain our mouths from speaking or better yet through silence we learn when to speak and when not to speak.

David:     Thank you. Very interesting. The last visit we concluded that medicine is available that heals all manner of mouth disease and one of the medications is what you have just mentioned, the bridle of silence. That discipline may be new to a lot of people, it’s not to me. But in my past, I didn’t practice nearly as much as I could have or should have. But I want you to read a little bit more from what you wrote about the discipline of silence, okay?

Karen:     I’m reading from my book Medicine for Mouth Disease.

When Lady Sundown was in the stall waiting to be groomed for riding and developed a nervousness as to whether or not I would really be able to get that bridle with all its straps and chains and rings and buckles on her head. Melissa learned to do this with amazing ease, but I had trouble because for me the horse often refused to take the bit, shoving it out of her mouth with her tongue or shaking her head. She could sense I was nervous and took advantage of me and much time was wasted in the stable getting that contraption on the horse.

For the Christian, consciously developing the discipline of silence is comparable to a horse taking the bit. We deliberately allow our tongues to be controlled by the heavy metal piece of quiet. How remarkably Christ demonstrated this control in John 8. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her? This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Christ answered them with silence. He bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.” Then finally from the power of that stillness he spoke, “let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. Then he bent his head again and withdrew into silence until only the woman was left standing before him.”

I’m dying to know what he wrote in the ground, aren’t you? Isaiah’s messianic prophecy testified to the future power of the silence. “He was oppressed,” meaning Christ, “and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shears is dumb. So, he opened not his mouth.”

And so, it came to pass the word that was in the beginning. Now within the unfolding drama of redemption chooses to become dumb, making no statement on his own behalf.

This from Mark 15. “But Jesus made no further answer so that Pilate wondered. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad for he had long desired to see him because he had heard about him. And he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So, he questioned him at some length but Christ made no answer. Without knowing it, Herod was witnessing a sign of Christ’s power. Herod was beholding a demonstration of the majestic display of silence, a perfect man having himself under control.

David:     I love those words.

Karen:     It’s a powerful example.

David:     Very, very strong. One of the miracle cures of mouth disease or control of the tongue is developing the discipline of silence. Okay, that’s our key thought for this visit. Again, one of the miracle cures of mouth disease or control of the tongue is developing the discipline of silence. This discipline doesn’t mean you can’t say anything. It’s just that you don’t always do the majority of the talking. It involves being more quiet than normal. And it includes asking good questions. Silence also requires a friend who can respond honestly when you ask, “Tell me truthfully, now did I talk too much last night?” It comes from our own experience, doesn’t it?

Karen:     Yeah, we’ve asked that question of one another quite a lot for 60 years. I’m not married.

David:     I think we both improved though in that area. I know there’s improvement in my life because I look back with horror. Some of those times I just dominated conversations. And now I think, didn’t I ever stop to at least take a breath? You know.

Karen:     It’s alright. Because we’re doing this podcast, I thought a lot about how we do develop silence in our lives. How have we developed that capacity to be still? And there are all kinds of ways that we can do that. This is sort of the extensive, the larger end of developing silence in ourselves. And that’s to go away and have a retreat of silence.

And when I was younger and writing and we had four kids and a lot of people have lived with us through the years as well. Young adults who needed a place to live or needed rehabilitation of some sort. And I’m an introvert by nature. I just longed for a place where I could be still and just spending time in prayer or take the nap that rested not only my body but my soul. So, I found some retreat centers, some of them were Catholic retreat centers that allowed people to come and take an intentional retreat of silence.

That was huge, David, for me. And I began to learn things about the benefit of practicing silence. And every Monday morning I try to just spend that morning before the Lord, reminding myself of who he is and what he’s done in our lives and going through my prayer journal and writing answers to the prayers that I put in my prayer journals. And then just being still before him, just not saying anything, just being still. And sometimes I hear him speak to my soul and other times I don’t, but I’ve been in his presence and so that’s a good thing.

David:     I would say that I affirm what you’re saying regarding yourself and I would also say that I believe I have come a long way, which very quickly I would add I had a long, long way to come. I look back at my life and I think this incessant use of words just go on and on until people’s eyes begin to roll. I’m not that way at all now. I’ve changed a great deal and that’s because the Lord has disciplined me.

But I just want to say the illustration you used before, the bit of silence, that’s not an easy thing to do. And whatever you struggle with Lady Sundown trying to get that thing inside of her mouth, that same struggle is going to be what a lot of people are going to hear as we talk about the discipline of silence. Because a strength can be also a weakness. The strength of being able to help people by the words that you speak. Sometimes you don’t know when to turn that faucet off and just no longer keep giving advice or no longer say, “Here’s what I found in my life and so on and so on.”

Karen:     Not everyone, David, as we know, is a talker. There are a lot of people who have great mental abilities, many gifts, but they don’t naturally talk as verbal as some other people are.

So, one of the ways that we have trained our tongue to be silent and listen to other people is to ask them questions about themselves. And we love having people around our dinner table. We’ll go around and we’ll have everyone at the table talk about themselves. We’ll ask them some questions and encourage them to tell more about what their dreams are, what their experiences have been in the back. Just questions like that.

But then sometimes after all of that, then we haven’t said anything and someone will say to you or to me, “Well, tell us about yourself.” This is something I want to ask you and then we begin to talk. But that’s different now because we’ve been practicing the bit of silence. It’s a mendicant for control over from a running mouth.

David:     Yeah, in fact, it’s almost as though I can feel the bit in there when I’m reminded by the Holy Spirit, you’re talking an awful lot. You just get interested in the other person. Ask the questions that will draw them out. That’s an important thing. I don’t know a lot of people who are just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

Karen:     We’ve met some in the years and some of them were Christian leaders too who just talked about themselves and what their ministry…

David:     Hopefully we got them early on and they have changed.

Karen:     Hopefully.

David:     But this is a hard thing to learn. The discipline of silence. I could say that but is it really necessary? I think I’ll refrain. I think I’ll ask a question instead.

When you run into a talker, that’s not easy. I did that just the other day. I can name people who in my lifetime, they just talk and talk and talk. And it may not be bad but at a certain point you say, take a breath or it just can be a chance to say, wait a minute, okay, now we have a recess here for about 30 seconds.

I’ve learned that I can say certain things to them. It’s helpful because sometimes people can’t stop. They don’t know when to stop. I saw a gentleman the other day and I was going to say to him, “I’ve been listening to you and here’s what I think you’re wanting to tell me.”

Is that fair? Now I didn’t have to because he stopped prior to me asking that question. But again, it’s a matter of saying, how do I reach out in a Christ-like way? I’m nowhere near where Jesus is when people do him wrong like Herod or like Pilate. I react but I just admire him so much. Coming from heaven to be here on earth.

Karen:     Lord of the world and the universe as well.

David:     Yeah. So when we talk on these topics, I’m talking not as a teacher. I’m talking as somebody who’s saying, “Yeah, don’t put that thing on me this morning.”

Karen:     Don’t put that on me this morning.

David:     Yeah, I don’t want that there. One of the things that I think helped us and it’s kind of a silly, you know, how do you help somebody spiritually to give a silly response? But we found talking about our tongues to one another was very painful. So, we said, “How do we do this in a way that is more humorous?” And through the years, we refer to a skit that was in the Muppets. It’s where Kermit has seen something wrong that the King has done. And the King is…

Karen:     …sitting beside him at the table at this long banquet table.

David:     And the King is talking, and every time Kermit wants to say something, the King puts a pop over in his mouth. And when Kermit with his mouth full of pop over can’t talk, he has to.

Karen:     And the line was?

David:     “Have another pop over, Froggy,” because the King, every time he saw that he was digesting enough of the pop over to be able to talk, he wants to say something. He had another pop over Froggy. And so, we’ve learned…

Karen:     And one of our go-to lines, “Have another pop over Froggy.”

David:     It means we haven’t had the control of our tongues that we should have had, you know. But at least we can laugh about it, which is better than not being able to. It’s a very serious thing. I think sometimes the way we talk too much when we’re around people, we even talk too much sometimes when we’re around the Lord. Does that make sense?

Karen:     Yes, it does.

David:     I think that sometimes in my praying, I’m so interested in my list and the things that I want to say, “I’m learning now.” So, I say it only as a learner. I’m saying, “Lord, is there anything you want to say to me in my prayer times?” And he’s never talked out loud.

Karen:     But you get an inward impression, a very strong inward impression.

David:     Yeah.

Karen:     That this is what he would say to you.

David:     Sometimes in a gracious way to remind me, as he is saying to me, “Did you notice what I did for you, David?” And that’s a very exciting thing. And there are times when I believe Jesus says to me, “You have come a long way. It’s taking you a while, but you’re making steady progress. You know, you don’t have the mouth disease problem of just always talking about yourself like you used to. Good for you, David.” That’s very meaningful to me.

Karen:     Yeah, it’s wonderful. So, just to summarize again, we’re talking for the next, so it’ll be about four weeks, I think, about the message in the book I wrote, Medicine for Mouth Disease, A Miracle Cure for Troublesome Tongues. And I had said in the previous podcast that I recognized I had a tongue disease and I needed to learn from the Lord how to be silent, how to use silence as a cure for that. And it’s still less than I’m learning from and applying in my lives. I mean, we all have a tendency to want to talk at various occasions when probably we need not to be.

So, it’s not that we’re perfect, but we’re certainly better than we were when we were younger. And we appreciate the use of silence and the cure for troublesome tongue, that the practice of silence can provide for us. You generally summarize what we’re saying in a sentence. Do you have that?

David:     I did it so cleverly, you didn’t even notice that I had done it. I’ll do it again though.

One of the miracle cures of mouth disease or control of the tongue is developing the discipline of silence.

And if we make it extremely practical, I would say when you gather even with Christian friends, sometimes go over as you think about the evening, “Did I talk too much? Did I say things that were insensitive? Did I fail to say something that I felt the Lord would have had me say and then I didn’t do it for whatever reason?”

Karen:     Or is there someone I should apologize to? Maybe I was totally out of hand and then I get home and I’m so convicted by what my mouth has done that I need to write them a note or pick them up and say, I hope I didn’t offend you and didn’t mean to, whatever. But those are things that get whispered to our heart. And we need to be obedient to those whispers because that’s part of the cure for mouth disease is recognizing that our tongue has been out of control. We’ve sent something that was unkind, and we need to apologize for it and make things right.

David:     I’m glad, Karen. I didn’t die when I was in my 50s or 60s. I’m glad I’m older now.

Karen:     You should have had a chance to mature in a lot of areas.

David:     Yeah, and I know God takes all those things into consideration in terms of life. But from my perspective, these later years, I’m more proud of them.

Karen:     You feel more satisfied with your growing maturity and spiritual depth that’s come through these years. So, what we’re saying to our listeners is just do a little mouth check. Think about how many times you’ve come home and said, “Oh, did I talk too much?” And you just feel an overwhelming sense that you did talk too much. Or remember the time someone said something harsh to you and it hurt you? And are you saying harsh things to other people and giving them harm, hurting them? Do you need to write that letter of apology? Do you need to ask the Lord for forgiveness? This is all part of how we learn to control the tongue. It’s not enough to say, “Oh, what a wise crack I made. Or I faded the truth a little bit there to make myself look better.”

All of those things have to be corrected in our lives by the reading of the Word and by the inner work of the Holy Spirit. And so, we just recommend that our listeners do that. Take some time to do that. And I know that we have people who listen to us who work through all of these things. But we could teach us a great deal as well. And yet it seems to be a recurring problem that crops up even when you get into the older decades. The tongue can be troublesome.

Outro:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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