July 8 Reflection

Reading - Psalm 79-81

Reflection Text - Psalm 81

Check out the following excerpt for today:

"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. 11 "But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. 12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels."

Verse 10 - It opens with the same exact words as the beginning of the 10 Commandments. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." The reader would have connected that immediately and would be waiting for another POWERFUL word from God for them. God follows it up with, "Open your mouth WIDE and I will fill it." He's referring to the table of quail that he invited His people to as an act of provision and life. God's invitation to his banquet is WIDE.

Verse 11 - BUT. Don't you hate that word. BUT. He says that God's people did not listen and would not submit.

Why don't people listen?

My kids don't at times because they are distracted or they have something or someone else that is more important.

Why don't people submit?

People don't submit because they want to be in control! They want to run their own life!

So God is saying that He had a banquet of food, an invitation to His provision and life, and His people were too distracted or too self-dependent to receive it. And how does God respond?

Verse 12 - "So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels."

God often gets a bad rap in my life because I blame him when things go wrong. "How could he let this happen to me (insert whiny voice here)?"

Maybe WE are choosing what we get because, like Israel, we are stubborn and have our own agendas. Maybe we actually take the power out of God's hands (which God could trump if God wanted) to provide, feed, nourish and restore us?

What am I doing today to listen to God and to submit to God's plan for my today?