“Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.”

I woke up around 5 a.m. today and before going back to sleep (I usually wake up around 8 or 9 because I work mid-shift.), I decided to read the Bible first. I read my Bible every morning and I do it chronologically. (I am currently in the book of Galatians.) I know that flipping randomly to scriptures is not recommended but… I admit I do that sometimes. And I did it today.

I read from the book of Ecclesiastes. What stuck with me is chapter 5 verse 1. It says in the first part that we should “draw near to hear”. When we come to God, often we position ourselves to be heard by Him. We present our requests and whatnot. We seldom come to Him to listen.

Every time I ask God to speak to me, I am always awestruck. I read exactly what I need when I need it. Listening to God, and not just hearing Him, can be a challenge because of all the distractions–external and internal. Sometimes the loudest noise is not from our surroundings but from our heart and mind. We need to quiet down our heart and mind to really listen to Him.

The second part of verse 1 is about giving a sacrifice to God. It’s called “sacrifice of fools” because the people “do not know that they do evil”. I thought of a verse that has a similar message:

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.’” 1 Samuel 15:22

God wants our heart more than anything we can give Him because really, there is nothing we can give that God doesn’t own. Everything good that we have is given by Him. He cares more about our heart posture than our performance. He sees behind our actions. He delights more in our obedience than our sacrifice.

When I pondered on it, it dawned on me how the phrases in that verse are related. Before we can obey Him, we have to draw near to Him first so we will know what He wants us to do. We cannot obey what we didn’t receive/hear.

Wow! So much revelation in just one verse! And we have the entire Bible to learn from and revel in. God’s Word is indeed living and active.