I'm almost through with the quotes from Ecclesiastes.  Three more.  "A time to keep silence, and a time to speak."  This is a hard one for me.  Because...

I have a very hard time keeping silent.  When I know something, and someone else doesn't, I figure that they would like to know what I know.  Wrong.  Not true.  Sometimes you just need to keep your mouth shut.  Sometimes if you wait a minute or two--another person will say what you wanted to say.  And if it is not well received, you don't have to take the flack.  You don't need flack anyway.

And many times, the very thing that is not well received is the truth.  People don't want you to tell them the truth.  They would much rather live with their own delusions.  And just because something is true doesn't mean that you are the one who is supposed to deliver the message anyway.

However:  There is a time to speak up.  If it can be done in casual conversation, great.  If it can't, and it absolutely has to be said, practice in front of a mirror.  Better still, write down exactly what you want to say and memorize it.  Be sure you don't deliver words for spite, or to prove how smart you are.  Be sure that the time to speak is now rather than later.  Be sure it needs to be said.

Sometimes a thing should be said in a public arena.  Sometimes, privately.  Most of the time nothing should be said at all--this is a tricky one.  You don't want to be pompous, but some issues do need to be aired.  Hopefully discussed.  I've carried a picket sign before--for a moral reason--when discussion failed. (Porn, pages open and displayed in a shop right next to the Junior High.)  It wasn't easy.  But by the end of the morning a huge, huge crowd of people had picked up a picket sign and joined me, people who had been fearful of taking the first step--they just needed someone to lead them who was willing to take the flack.  I don't mind taking flack.  (Threatened with a boycott, the store quit displaying and selling it.)  It was such an unusual thing for a woman to do that it made the national news from East to West coast.  Larry Flynt (Hustler) wrote me a horrible letter.  Flack.

However, when it comes to the facts concerning the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, "now" is always the perfect time to speak.  Don't wait.  Sure, you may be rejected, but you also may save someone's life.  People won't know the truth unless someone tells them.  Share the truth.