Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled, A Time to Speak, was written by Patricia Rabin.

For 30 long years, the African-American woman worked faithfully for a large global ministry.

Yet, when she sought to talk with coworkers about racial injustice, she was met with silence.

Finally, however, in the spring of 2020, as open discussions about racism expanded around the world,

her ministry friends started having some open dialogue. With mixed feelings and pain,

she was grateful, discussions began. Silence can be a virtue in some situations.

As King Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens, a time to be silent and a time to speak.

Silence in the face of bigotry and injustice, however, only enables

harm and hurt. Lutheran pastor Martin Niemolder, jailed in Nazi Germany for speaking out, confessed that in

a poem he penned after the war. First, they came for the communists, he wrote, but I didn't speak up

because I wasn't a communist. He added, then they came for the Jews, the Catholics, and others,

but I didn't speak up. Finally, they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.

It takes courage and love to speak up against injustice.

Seeking God's help, however, we recognize the time to speak is now.

Thank you. the time to speak is now. Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Ecclesiastes

chapter 3, verses 1 through 7.

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens,

a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep, and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatterstones, and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing,

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