Open Your Mouth and Be Fed

Sing aloud to God our strength;

shout for joy to the God of Jacob!

Raise a song; sound the tambourine,

the sweet lyre with the harp.

Blow the trumpet at the new moon,

at the full moon, on our feast day.

When I think about listening to God’s commands, I typically think of the difficult and unpleasant aspects that my nature tends to resist. Psalm 81 opens with admonitions to sing, shout for joy, and feast. That doesn’t sound too difficult or unpleasant.

The psalm goes on to remind Israel what God has done for them. God pleads with Israel to listen to him. He says, “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.”

Open your mouth so God can fill it. Have I ever paused to consider that before?

Some of us hold our open hands out to God when we pray, as if to receive his words and his blessings. I’ve never seen anyone sitting in church praying with her head back, mouth wide open. What should this look like? Is it a picture of a helpless baby bird with outstretched neck and beak wide open waiting for food to be dropped into its mouth? That’s rather humiliating. Standing open-mouthed to allow someone to put food into it is an extremely vulnerable position.

It’s been forty years since I let someone do that to me. The food was cake, and the person was the man I had been married to for less than an hour. As much as I loved him and thought I knew him well, I still wasn’t absolutely positive he wasn’t going to embarrass me. What a deep symbol of submission that silly little tradition is.

Do I trust God enough to stand before him with an open mouth and allow him to feed me? Am I absolutely sure that whatever he chooses to put in will be good? My head knows it will. His Word assures me that all his intentions for me are good. Is my heart so convinced that I can open my mouth wide before him and accept whatever he feeds me?

When my first child was old enough for me to start offering him solid food, he wouldn’t let me put anything in his mouth. He would shut his lips tightly, take the morsel from my hand, examine it, then put it in his mouth himself. I was surprised that he was so reluctant and suspicious. Why didn’t he understand that I was trying to share good things with him?

Most mothers will recall the first attempt to put a spoonful of something mushy and tasteless into a baby’s mouth. The baby turns her head away and cereal ends up closer to her ear than her mouth. If she does open her mouth, the food often ends up spit right back in mom’s face.

How often do I push God’s hand away because what he wants to give me doesn’t look at all like what I want? Do I have ideas about what I expect and deserve that God has never promised me?

When God promised the Israelites that he would lead them out of the bondage of Egypt, he said he would give them a land flowing with milk and honey. In this psalm, he tells them that if they will listen to him, he will feed them with the finest of wheat, and with honey from the rock. These are the simple fruits of nature, but God says they will be satisfied.

Why is it that satisfaction isn’t enough for me? I want more than enough. Milk and honey are well and good, but I want meat. What am I, some helpless baby bird? I need and deserve more. After all, if I don’t take care of myself, who will?

“O Israel, if you would but listen to me!”

In his Commentary on the Psalms, Charles Spurgeon says, “Though the divine voice proposed nothing but good to them, and that upon an unparalleled scale of liberality, yet they turned aside.”

In verse 12, God says, “So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.” Spurgeon comments, “No punishment is more just or more severe than this. If men will not be checked, but madly take the bit between their teeth and refuse obedience, who shall wonder if the reins are thrown upon their necks, and they are let alone to work out their own destruction.”

Lavishly generous Father, teach me to recognize that everything I have is from you. Help me accept unquestioningly that everything you give is good. Save me from striking out on my own to get the things I think would be better than what you offer. In the name of Jesus who bought us, Amen

Scripture for Reflection

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19 ESV).

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17 ESV).

Reach for More

Consider Matthew Henry’s comment on verse 6 of Psalm 81, from his Commentary on the Psalms: “He delights in our serving him, not because he is the better for it, but because we shall be.”

Through the gift of a faithful mother and grandmother, Diane Pendergraft grew up knowing Jesus as a friend. Married for nearly two-thirds of her life, there has been time for several seasons, from homeschooling to owning a coffee shop. She has three grown children and nine grandchildren. An element of this season is writing about literature and life at Plumfield and Paideia.