“The Proverbs rarely tell us to say more.”

I recently shared this thought in a small group at work. We were discussing principles of biblical communication, and I was making the common point that wisdom is careful with its words. We don’t just rant, vent, and give people the raw feed, especially when emotions are running high. One well-known proverb summarizes: “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Prov 10:19).

The Proverbs often warn us about multiplying our words.

Yet a colleague wisely added that while this verbal restraint may be a key message about communication in Proverbs, we find a different example in the Psalms.

Yes, in everyday life, the sages tell us, we should watch our words, restraining our speech and keeping our emotions in check. Yet the Psalms, by their sheer number and diversity and emotional freedom, spur us into a flowing conversation with God. Knowing we often lack the words and the spirit for it—”we do not know what to pray for as we ought” (Rom 8:26)—God himself even lays out the path for us, crafting a long lyrical trail that walks us through any landscape we might meet in life. Talk with me, he says, and since I know you’ll struggle with the words, here are 150 songs to sing and pray.

The invitation echoes through Scripture, as though God knows we’ll struggle to get it: Pour out your heart to God, because he’s your refuge (Ps 62:8). Translate your mental anxieties into verbal prayers, and saturate those prayers with gratitude (Phil 4:6). Pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17). Speak to your God. Keep the conversation going, and keep the prayer juices flowing. He wants to hear from you, even moment by moment, and to speak to you by his Spirit through his word.

It’s not that we blabber on mindlessly, using prayer as a pacifier and ignoring our adult responsibilities. Scripture guides us away from the babbling mantras of false religions that try to manipulate God, or the many pop psychologies that assume we can solve ourselves (1 Kgs 18:26–29; Matt 6:7; Eph 4:14). We can keep it simple, since he knows what we need before we ask (Matt 6:8–13).

Yet as we speak to him simply, we can also speak to him constantly. No moment is too small, and no issue too big. While our daily work keeps us from praying like an ever-running faucet that never shuts off, we can run to our Father like ocean waves that—even with their natural lulls—are always sending their pent-up energy toward the shoreline.

Then, as we’re saying more to God, verbalizing our troubles instead of internalizing them, his promises speak to us by faith. We receive his regular installments of the peace that passes all understanding. Our hearts can settle and resettle, like silt on a slow-moving riverbed, not so stirred up and made murky by the rush and the churn of daily life. In fact, when we’re saying more to God, and resting in his truth and love, our hearts feel less of that fleshly need to vent what’s prideful, or hurtful, or vengeful, or self-pitying.

We can say less, because we have another place—a very present help in trouble—where we’re always saying more.

When I’m regularly taking my hurts to the only one who can heal them, my conversations with others are no longer the ultimate place where I must seek support and restoration for my soul. When I’m confessing my sins and receiving his assurances of forgiveness, my restless conscience can cease striving and covering and performing. When I’m pleading for justice in his presence, sometimes in the rawest terms as the Psalms instruct me, I am less inclined to level that rage toward the world around me, which cannot be made right until my King returns. When we’re saying more to God, steering our hearts and hopes and needs into his presence, we’re better prepared to filter our words in daily life—and turn our conversational attention to the needs of others.

When we’re saying more to God, like the Psalms show us, we can say less that’s damaging, like the Proverbs tell us. We can learn to say less, by saying more.