Lent 2023 Day 20 “Speak Less, Do More”

Daily Scriptures: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2081;%20Genesis%2024:1-27;%202%20John%201:1-13

Psalm 81:7 In your distress you called and I rescued you,
    I answered you out of a thundercloud;
    I tested you at the waters of Meribah.^[c]
8 Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—
    if you would only listen to me, Israel!
⁹ You shall have no foreign god among you;
    you shall not worship any god other than me.
¹⁰ I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

¹¹ “But my people would not listen to me;
    Israel would not submit to me.
¹² So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
    to follow their own devices.

¹³ “If my people would only listen to me,
if Israel would only follow my ways,
¹⁴ how quickly I would subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes!

Speak Less Do More

“You don’t hear me”. “You are not listening”. “I never said that.” “If YOU opened YOUR ears as wide as YOUR mouth YOU might learn something”. These or similar words have been uttered time and time again by people frustrated by how what they are saying is being ignored. The art of communication requires two active parties both engaged in the process. How frustrating it is when YOU are saying one thing and the person you are speaking to hears another. Think of a situation where YOU were not fully present as a listener. Think about how YOUR mind may have drifted or how YOU fixated on one thing and didn’t hear anything else. As these thoughts enter YOUR mind recognize how closed off YOU were to possibilities because YOUR mind was already made up. Instead of being open, YOU were tight as a drum.

The Israelite community is being referenced in the text from Psalm 81 as a hard-headed stubborn-hearted people.  YHWH has heard their cry and responded with deliverance. When they had cried out in despair YHWH heard them. Now its time for them to listen and suddenly they act like they can’t hear. The Psalmist says, ⁸ Hear me, my people, and I will warn you— if you would only listen to me, Israel! 

If only they would listen they would learn how to sustain the blessings they had received. If only they would listen they would know to open their mouth and let YHWH fill it. This is key. A mouth has to be open to speak but it also has to be open to eat. Metaphorically an open life is able to experience abundance when it is silent enough to chew. We learned as children not to talk with food in our mouths. The people of Israel had a habit of speaking out of turn.

Halfway through Lent 2023, we have a chance to listen or to talk. Communication with YHWH is best when we don’t do all the talking. If we will but listen and follow the path YHWH has for us, we may find out that YHWH  has already worked it out. Whatever YOUR situation, actively listening to YHWH is a step in the right direction.

Point to Ponder: Have YOU talked to YHWH today? Did YOU listen or do all the talking? Who have YOU been too quick to speak and too slow to listen with? Go and remember, We have two eyes and ears and one mouth. We are best when we look and listen twice as much as we talk.