Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Open Wide! with David Roper
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Open Wide!
I
am the LORD your God,
who
brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open
your mouth wide, and I will fill it. —Psalm 81:10
I read this verse today
and thought of mornings long ago when our boys were very small and we spoon fed
them. (Failing that, though each child tried very hard to get the meal into his
mouth, most of it wound up smeared all over his face, in his hair, in his ears,
on his tray, on the floor or all over us.) Here, I picture God picking up a
spoon and saying, "Here comes the little train down the little track;
Choo. Choo. Choo. Open wide."
If first two lines of the
verse sound familiar it's because they're a direct quote from the preamble to
the Ten Commandments: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of
Egypt..." The commandments follow: "Thou shalt not; thou shalt not;
thou not..." (Exodus 20:2).
Here in this psalm,
however, where we expect to find another set of rules, God makes this offer:
“Open your mouth wide and I will fill it."
Israel's history, like
mine, is a tale of underachievement, yet God does not call for greater effort.
He rather asks us to lay our "doing" down, open our hearts wide and
receive what He longs to give us.
Trying to keep a bunch of
rules and make ourselves better is a losing cause. I know because I tried it
for years. God alone is the source of goodness for God alone is good. We must
ask for his righteousness and keep on asking. "Ask and it will be given to
you" Jesus said (Matthew 7:7). It's a promise.
Long, long ago, on the
cross, Jesus did away with our wrong-doing. Now He lives to make us good
children. If we "open our mouths wide" He will, in His time, fill us
with love, joy, peace, patience, and all the virtues we admire in Jesus and
seek for ourselves. He will feed us with the "finest of wheat," and
satisfy us with "honey from the rock" (Psalm 81:16).
Cream
of wheat and honey. YUM. Open wide!
Weary,
working, burdened one,
Wherefore
toil you so?
Cease
your doing; all was done
Long,
long ago.
—James
Proctor
David Roper
10.3.17
E-musings are archived at http://davidroper.blogspot.com
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