Open Wide Your Mouth and I Will Fill It

"Charissa is the skinniest baby ever."

Those were the last words I remember Christina speaking last night before I fell asleep last night.

As a dad, things like these don't bother me as much as they should, I guess. I keep telling Christina that when Charissa gets hungry or thirsty enough, she'll eat and drink.

Of course, those are the words of a guy who is at work all day and thus not home to enjoy all the attempts to feed our youngest girl.

You see, in the rare occasions that I do get to feed Charissa, she often closes her mouth, turns her head away, pushes the spoon away, or, my favorite, grabs the bowl with gorilla-like strength and flings it and its contents across the floor.

Sometimes I think this is what we as Christians are like with spiritual food. God is more than willing to feed His children with the Bread of Life, but we come up with every excuse to avoid and oppose God's free offer of spiritual sustenance. Unfortunately, this leaves us spiritually emaciated.

Psalm 81:10  speaks of God's willingness to supply His people with all that they truly stand in need of. As the ESV Study Bible notes, this is an indication of God's boundless generosity towards those He has rescued.

"Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." (Psalm 81:10b)

Just as God had formerly brought  up His people of old out of the land of Egypt (81:10a) and was willing to provide them with every good thing they needed to make it into the land He guaranteed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God was still willing to bless His people who were inhabiting that very land. (cf. Rom. 8:32)

If only they opened their mouth. If only they understood the limitless bounty of God's grace made available and being offered to them.

        "But My people did not listen to my voice;
           Israel would not submit to Me."

The rest of the psalm (81:12-16) contrasts God's willingness to bless His people with their refusal to simply and gratefully receive them.

Unfortunately, other [less-satisfying] things were more important to God's people. As 81:9 shows, idols were more important. Though we may not bow down of images to Baal, Ashteroth, Chemosh, or Mary, how often we catch ourselves bowing down to the idols of work, family, money, entertainment, sex, sports, peer pressure, comfort, and even religion. In doing so, we are exchanging the life-giving manna of God for broken cisterns that do not and cannot satisfy. (cf. Jer. 2:13)

Dear Christian, what idols are preventing you from opening wide your mouth to receive the blessings of God? What things are keeping you from daily communion with your God via prayer and the reading of/meditation upon God's Word?

Yet for those of us who are willing to open our mouths, God will surely fill them. In the same way that Christina is overjoyed when Charissa gets more food in her mouth than on her shirt, God is likewise overjoyed when we as His dear children open wide our spiritual mouths to be fed with the life-giving and soul-satisfying manna of the Word, Jesus Christ.

The word I love most in this verse is "wide." God tells His people, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."

The image that comes to mind is a mother crow (my favorite bird) feeding its little ones. There are very few things in all of God's good creation that create such a cacophonous kerfuffle as a nest of baby crows vying for the food their mother has brought them. Their mouths are opened wide (sometimes I wonder if their little beaks will snap they're opened so wide), and their provider is willing to fill it. She would have never left her comfortable abode to find food for them and then return if she wasn't.

Oh that we would not barely open our mouths! This is what Elisha and Abigail do when they're not sure what's on the spoon or fork. They don't trust the one offering them the food. They wince and squirm, but eventually take it. Yet once they realize how awesome a cook their mother is, how widely they open their mouths!

Moreover, God does not say that He 'might' fill our widened mouths. "No", He says, "I will fill it." That's a promise.

Nor does He say that He'll merely give us a sampler or appetizer. He says He will fill our mouths. Like every vessel brought to the prophet of 2 Kings 4 was filled to the brim with the life-providing oil from God, so it will be for us. As the text makes clear, the oil stopped flowing only when there were no more vessels to fill.

Do we see God this way, as the inexhaustible source of blessing to those willing and believing to receive it?

As Jesus Himself taught in Mark 4:21-25,

"With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you."

Dear Christian, whether in prayer or time in the Word, remember God's promise to the people He has already redeemed out of bondage. "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."

In Christ, and for His glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan