Full
Psa 119:103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
I remember the good old days, when I could just stuff myself with about everything on the table and still feel like I had room for more. I traveled a couple summers with a group that, while there wasn’t much pay, did provide an abundance of meals. I would order really large portions and then help some of the others with their leftovers. During that time in my life all that food had somewhere to go and my metabolism would pretty much burn it up and take care of it. With the passage of time, however, I’ve found that not only am I unable to eat nearly as much, but now the food that I do eat doesn’t seem to know how to take off after I’ve enjoyed it. It just wants to hang around to add itself to my middle self.
There is something else I’ve noticed throughout my daily experience with food, though- that one of the best ways to diminish and extinguish the hunger of a famished belly is to fill it up. In fact, whether I am able to eat large volumes or the lesser requirements of today, there is no better way to ruin my appetite than to get completely full. Once the full meter is starting to read a little above half way, everything, including those wonderful desserts starts to lose its appeal, and the very morsels that normally would look and sound so inviting, can be left right there on the plate. Where the tank is already full, it doesn’t matter how you attempt to fill it up again, there just isn’t any room left.
I believe that quite often in our opportunity to savor the sweetness of God’s word, it is setting on the plate before those who are already quite full. Though intentions might be to eat of it and allow it to nourish the body, other thoughts and other expressions are already filling the mind and the heart with meaningless cares of this life. God’s very words of life are often left without even really being touched because of the harmful fast food that is already occupying every square inch of the stomach. In addition to the inner gratification the Word could have brought to the heart and soul, there is also a lost opportunity to really savor the Word by letting it occupy the mouth as it is spoken as well. This opportunity is often also disallowed because of the junk that is already abiding in that place. Good water and bad water don’t come out of the same cistern and where the mouth is already full of death’s words it will ever be most difficult to enjoy and savor the most succulent and wonderful preparations at the Father’s table.
For the Word of God to ever really be enjoyed and ingested as intended, there will have to be a hunger and a thirst for it, and for this famished state to ever exist, there will need to be a removal or deprivation of those other things that have so long occupied the mouth and the spiritual belly. In the quiet times and the secret place, far removed from the continual partaking of the world’s damaging concoctions, it will become more and more possible for the Word to become the delicious desire as referred to by the psalmist in this passage. When there is no longer a dominance of the meaningless, an appetite for the most nourishing and savory morsels of the Word will begin to look, smell, and taste so much better than any other portion. In quietness the soul will take on its need for sustenance, and as this need is gratified by the Word of God, the most incredible and wonderful fruit will begin to occupy the inner belly and the mouth itself with savory words of life.
There may be a need this day for interaction with those around us, and we may be required to ingest the substance that presses in from family, friends, and occupation, but there will ever be this refuge available in Christ, where, no matter the magnitude of worldly provision, the mouth and belly can be enjoyably filled with the preparations of the Father. As this place is accessed and His daily bread eaten, we will increasingly find that it is easy and natural to leave that other junk on the plate. Where its look and taste once appeared to be so inviting, the world will no longer be acceptable. We’ll already be way more than full with the very thing that will again be our hunger and passion tomorrow.
