Watch Your Step

1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Better to approach in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they ignorantly do wrong. 2 Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Ecclesiastes 5:1-2

We assume worship starts when we do something. We sing. We pray. I say "open your Bibles" and I'm already three points ahead in my head. Ecclesiastes starts earlier than that. Guard your steps.

The man in this passage hasn't skipped church. He's there. Sacrifice in hand, words ready. And he still misses the God he came to meet. You can do everything worship asks of you and never actually reckon with who is standing across from you.

So the Teacher tells him to listen first. Don't rush to speak. Remember where you are. God is in heaven. You are on earth. That sentence restores your place before it tells you anything else.

Through Jesus we've been given what the fool never had, an invitation to come close. Christ didn't lower God's holiness. He opened the door.

Guard your steps sounds less like a warning to me now. More like directions to a door somebody already opened for you.

Father, wake me up to your presence. Teach me to listen before I speak, and keep me from growing so used to approaching you that I forget I've been welcomed.