Open mouth; insert foot

Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words. Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 NIV

Open mouth; insert foot. <— that’s been my personal anthem most of my life. I’ve had my foot stuck securely in my mouth more times than I can count. I’ve always been quick with my tongue, and I’ve always, always regretted it.

I speak before I think, I act before I think, I react before I think…. Do you see the pattern? Believe it or not, it’s taken me almost 40 years to see that I use my mouth before my brain all…too…often…

God’s good word says over and over to shhh… Our words, so easily become the speech of fools. Why is it so hard?

It’s hard, I think, because as long as our lips are moving, we don’t have to think about what we’re saying. We don’t have to care about the lives around us if we’re constantly running our mouths about this or that.

God’s word is clear about coming to God in prayer … ‘let your words be few’. It’s part of the reverence, part of the awe of approaching the throne. There is no place, no room, for mindless chatter when speaking to God. He knows our hearts, he knows our needs. Filling the space in between with words for the sake of speaking is foolishness to him.

Puffed-up long-winded prayers with big words and righteous vocabulary is not what God wants. Prayer from the heart, prayer that can sometimes take the form of cries and moans rather than words and sentences – these are the prayers God wants to hear from us. Speak to God, not at God.

I stand before you today Lord, completely humbled by the words you’ve written, as if for me alone. God to speak from my heart, unencumbered by fluff and the fill, so that you and I both hear the praises, the thanksgivings and the needs I have, will change the way I come to you. I know what I want to say, what I need to say, yet I stumble over the words, even as I write. You are teaching me that the words, the combinations of letters into pieces of language, are not what is important. What’s important is that I convey my heart to you as bare and raw and real as I possibly can.