Today's Bible Reading: PSALM 79-82
Psalm 81:10 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.
Sometimes we wonder if God sees our difficulties and distress. We struggle to make ends meet. And we scrimp and scrape to survive. At the end of the day we wonder if we have enough to make it and hopefully thrive. We wonder if God even cares.
But the Lord does see and He does care. In this psalm of Aseph, the Lord admonishes us. He sets forth an amazing promise of provision for His people, and He offers them full satisfaction. He gives them an invitation to ask big.
He tells us to hear His voice and to heed what He says. He encourages us to reflect on who He is, remember what He has done, and request from Him big things that we need. Clearly in doing this, He promises to provide the means to meet our needs.
He says, “I am the Lord your God”. Here He calls us to continually consider who He is and whose we are. These simple words “I am the Lord”, should cause us to contemplate the character of our God. It should lead us to reflect on His holiness, His goodness, His love, His faithfulness, His long-suffering, His mercy, His grace, and the list goes on. It should cause us to ponder the majesty and magnificence of our God over and above all other gods.
But this phrase should also cause you to consider the fact that out of all the people in the world the Lord has set His love upon you. He is “your God”. He has personally chosen you to be His child. You are His and He is your God. God is also personally concerned about you and the things that concern you. He is not a disinterested or a detached father, but a good, good Father. He sees you. He hears you. He cares about you and He cares for you.
The reality of His relationship to you should lead you to honor and glorify Him. It should develop a deeper trust in Him to supply “every need according to his riches in glory” (Phil 4:18). So you need not fret, but put your faith in Him to provide.
The text also challenges us to remember what He has done. His power was displayed in the deliverance of His people from their Egyptian bondage. It was manifest in the plagues and in His provision for and His protection of His people throughout their wilderness wanderings. We are to recall how the Lord helped them through the harsh desert and know that if He aided them in their anguish, He can aid you in yours. His power was present then and it is present now. In this you can be confident that there is nothing too difficult for your God (Jer. 32:17).
Finally, the psalmist tells us that this personal and powerful God whom we worship invites us to ask big of Him. The Lord tells you, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” He says ask big and I will answer big. There is nothing too big to ask of God. He tells us to ask of Him and promises to answer us. This analogy of a baby bird with their mouth wide open being fed by a caring loving mother bird, gives us a perfect picture of how the Lord wants to fulfill our greatest need. Closed mouths will never be filled, but a mouth wide open will be filled completely. Open your mouth and let the Lord fill it.
Today thank the Lord that there is no God greater then Him. Praise Him for how He delivered the Israelites from Egypt and that the same power can help you through your hardest times. Thank Him that there is nothing too big to ask of Him. Ask Him to help you keep your mouth “open wide” in anticipation the He will “fill it”.
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