We’ve all been in desperate or overly fantastic situations and let our emotions cloud what we think and say. We then make some type over extreme emotionally driven statement or promise only to realized once we’ve leveled out our emotions and mind that what we said and promised was something very extreme. Perhaps we’ve made a promise to quit that we love or start doing something that we hate (like eating broccoli). We let our situation and our emotions dictate our response and we often regret it.
We do this with God in those same situations. Make promises to God if He will answer or pray. Bitter question God when things don’t go our way. Overly promise to God in a rush of excitement (like Jephthah who was so excited and grateful the Israelites had won their battle he promised to God to sacrifice whatever greeted him first when he got home. Well, when he got home his only daughter ran first out of the gate to celebrate with him.)
Solomon cautions us to don’t be hasty and run off at the mouth when talking to God. We shouldn’t even have rash thoughts directed toward God. Why? Because our reactions are emotional and temporal and earthly. They do not have all the facts and definitely don’t know the future. We promise to quit habits. We promise to make habits. We promise to heal relationships. We promise to end bad relationships. We promise to start being more Godly. We promise to be more charitable. The list goes on and on. We utter these promises because we are caught up in the moment (either extreme sorrow, anger, disappointment, or even happiness) and we aren’t thinking clearly. We talk to God as though He was just a friend or co worker or stranger on a plane who is going to not hold us accountable for what we’ve said and instead brush it off because of the situation.
But that is not who God is. Solomon tells us that. God is in heaven. We are on earth. We should not view God as just another ear to express our emotional reactions. God is the maker of all the universe. When we say those things to God he expects us to be serious about them and to keep them (we’ll talk about that soon). When we say something to God that is hasty and temporal and emotional, it demonstrates a lack of respect and true understanding of our relationship to God and God’s role in the universe.
When we talk to God, we are coming to the throne room of the creator of everything, the author of salvation, the One who made time and has no beginning or end. We need to remember that and be cautious when we speak to God.
Solomon is not saying we can’t be emotional when we talk to God or that we should wait to talk to Him when we aren’t in one of those extreme situations. What he is saying is to think before you speak. Don’t be hasty with your words or thoughts toward God. Remember, He is God the Creator and you are the created.
Adonai's Appeal 