Open Wide

When you don't want to go to church, that is usually the time you need it the most. After my day yesterday, I really thought about skipping church and coming home and going to bed. But I knew that I needed to go and I am so glad I did. We are going verse by verse through the Psalms on Wednesday night and I was just so blessed. The praise time was just what I needed to get my focus off ME and onto the Lord. We sang a prayer begging the Lord to get our focus on Him. Here are the words:
"May Your voice be louder, and may Your voice be clearer than all the others, than all the others. May Your face be dearer and may Your words be sweeter than all the others, than all the others in my life. Please keep my eyes fixed on You. Please root my heart so deep in You. Keep me abiding, keep me abiding. Keep me abiding so that I, so that I may bear fruit. And may Your presence be truer and may Your presence be nearer than all the others, than all the others. And may Your light shine brighter and may Your love move deeper than all the others, than all the others in my life." What a prayer we all need. We can't do it without Him. We can't want to abide in Him without His help. This was my mistake yesterday. I was trying to force my way through the day. I wasn't asking for help, the help He longs to provide.
When we were in Psalms last night we were in chapters 78-81 and the main thing I learned is that God is waiting to fulfill our deepest needs. His biggest frustration with Israel is that He was giving them all the things they needed and they still turned away to other things. He continually provided for them miraculously and still didn't "believe in God or trust His deliverance." (Ps. 78:22). I think one of the worst things we can do to our Lord is not believe He will do what He says He will do. Our unbelief is obviously something that angers our Lord, as He was angered with the children of Israel. Yet, He continually tried to win them back to Him. Why? He knows He has what is best. The saddest part is the end of Psalm 81 when you can hear the longing in the voice of God. "If my people would be listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the Lord would cringe before Him and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest wheat, with honey from the rock I would satisfy you." How our God longs to satisfy us. He longs to feed us the finest wheat. Believe me, the things that we are turning to other than our Lord are not worth holding onto.
Our pastor reminded us the story of David and how when Nathan came to confront him with his sin and God said, "I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you more." (2 Samuel 12:8) God wants to fill our deepest desires, He longs to be all that we need - He is and wants us to believe it and live that way. When we are feeling discontent or lacking, ask Him to fill you. Sing the song above as your prayer to Him. He says in Psalms 81: 10 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of ___________ (you fill in your blank, where did He bring you out of?). Open wide your mouth and I will fill it."
Let Him fill you up today!