December 2012

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I took my troubles to the Lord; I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.
Psalm 120:1


Feast or Famine?

 This month's devotional is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend who has, for the past few months, been hearing very some frightening diagnoses.

 I am praying, praying that you will feel the Lord's peace in spite of whatever worry-causing words you hear!  And yes, it's the Enemy's tactic to throw stuff like that at us.  He's been working on me in the area of financial worries.  The other day, as I was walking back to the house from the mailbox, the song, "This is Only a Mountain" by Jason Castro (find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OWLs1G3q1o ) was going through my head.  "This is only a mountain," he sings, and for a few moments I felt totally buoyed up by that thought.  I took the bill I'd opened at the mailbox, a huge amount, much more than we can pay, and I laid that yellow paper with all its numbers out in the middle of our grassy field south of the garage.  "There's my mountain, Lord," I said.  "It's huge to me, so big I can't see over or around or through, but mountains to me are only grains of sand to You, if that."  I stood there for a while, waiting.  Nothing miraculous happened.  Actually, the dog walked over, sniffed at the paper, then walked away when she realized it wasn't something to eat.  Such a strange thing laying there in the field!  And that did it for me.  How odd that we get so stressed out about a paper, or the lack of paper (money), or the words on a paper!  The dog had the right idea; if you can't eat it, what good is it?!
            But there are words we can eat, words that will do us great good.  A voice from heaven said to Ezekiel,

Son of man, eat what you see.  Eat this book.  Then go and speak to the family of Israel.”  As I opened my mouth, he gave me the scroll to eat, saying, 'Son of man, eat this book that I am giving you.  Make a full meal of it!' So I ate it.  It tasted so good--just like honey.  Ezekiel 3: 1-3 MSG. 

            In the NT, after speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said to His disciples, who were worried about lunch, I have food to eat of which you do not know (John 4:32  NKJV). The disciples still thought He was referring to lunch!  More often than I care to admit, even to myself, I'm just as dense as they were.  Jesus explained, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. (vs. 34).
            So there it is, the words that are to be our food are God's words, and doing His will metabolizes those words in us, changes them from good words into good works.  Bills and diagnoses aren't even junk food; they're non-food, and taking their words and numbers into ourselves as if they were food doesn't do us any more good than eating that piece of paper would have done Belle.  Yes, those non-food words and numbers will be around as long as we're on this Earth, but we don't have to feed on them. In fact, we'll starve our souls right into famine if we do.

            My prayer for myself, for my friend, and for all who are reading this is that we make it our practice to truly feed only on the sweet words that can nourish our souls.  That's the feast no holiday meal, no matter how wonderful, can top!

 

Daye Phillippo

December 2012