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C0709: The weekly meeting just went from twenty minutes to an hour and nobody said anything new the whole time. My name is Sean. Welcome back to Prayer Before Work. So here's the setup. your office rolled out a new engagement system and now managers are tracking how much each person contributes in meetings. So if you don't say much that literally counts against you, even if you didn't have anything useful to add. So this week, everybody talked. People repeated what someone else had just said. People asked questions they already knew the answers to. People threw in random comments just to get on the board. And at the end of it, your manager called it one of the most productive meetings you've ever had. Okay, you're allowed to laugh a little. It's kind of absurd, but it does leave you with a real question. What are you going to do next week? Well, Proverbs 17, verse 27 and 28, says, Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Now there's a little humor in that, but This Proverbs figured out about three thousand years ago that talking more doesn't make anybody smarter. But the point isn't that wise people never talk, it's that their words carry weight because they aren't spending them all on filler. And when they do speak, people lean in. So you get two easy options here, and neither one is great. You can play the game and pad your numbers like everybody else. Or you can roll your eyes and check out. So let me offer you a third one. Walk in with one real thing to say. a question you actually need answered. Maybe a problem you can see coming. credit for a coworker who did something good this week. Say it clearly and then let it rest. It still counts on the tracker, and it's actually worth hearing. And if you have a decent relationship with your manager, it might be worth a gentle, honest conversation a little later. Something like, hey, I noticed the meeting tripled in length. I want to contribute, but I'm worried we're rewarding volume over value. Could we try something different? I mean, no sarcasm, right? Just just being open and honest. And one more thing. Watch your heart toward your coworkers. Most of them are just trying to protect their standing, maybe their job. When the system is counting their words, don't start counting them too. Let's pray. Lord, it's it's easy to get cynical when the rules at work don't make much sense. Keep us from mocking people around us and keep us from playing games just to look good. Give us words worth saying and the self-control to stop when we've said them. And when something needs to be addressed. Give us the courage to to say it with kindness and honesty. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And go make today count.