Wow--there is only one month left in this year! Month by month, week by week, day by day, even second by second this year is almost done and over with. I could say, “How can this be?”, but I know how it happened. It happens each and every day. I use or don't use the time given to me from God that He wants me to use wisely. Sometimes I do, sometimes I fail. It is a serious matter to consider that God will hold us accountable for our time. Have I been a good steward of that commodity?
Earlier this week I was able to enjoy having a baby in our home--one of our grandsons. Watching a baby change and grow is another way to mark the passage of time. Time doesn't stop for parents to enjoy each stage of baby growth just a bit longer. The day of the first smile is fleeting. Then comes laughing and giggling. The day the first tooth makes an appearance will never come again. The day that a spoon of solid food is placed in a baby's mouth means that from then on, the growing child will need good healthy food prepared for him several times a day. You will not be able to resolve a growling tummy with only a bottle ever again. But Mommies and Daddies would not want their baby to stay as a tiny newborn forever. They just might wish they could have a bit longer to enjoy their little one before the next change in the growing process
At any rate, I was given the fun of feeding our newest 7-month-old. He gets to have a most delicious meal of baby mush made of oatmeal mixed with various fruit combinations. I tasted it and I am glad for my 7-grain cereal breakfast and mac and cheese and broccoli and brownies and other wonderfully tasty things. But my grandson thought he was having a feast. When you don't have teeth, each spoonful of the "feast" wants to slide out almost as fast as it gets spooned into the mouth. So, feeding a baby is a constant round of putting the spoonful into the open little mouth, then catch what doesn't stay and put it back in, maybe twice, maybe even a third time until it all finally gets in to stay and swallowed. I found myself using my own mouth to imitate what I was wanting that little baby mouth to do. Open, then purse my lips to get the food off the spoon and close them to keep the food in my mouth, well, his little mouth. My actions were very much an involuntary action, I was not aware that I was doing them until I took a moment to realize what my mouth and lips had been doing. I am absolutely sure that my actions did nothing to help make lunch time a success. He was pretty anxious for his tasty meal, just I am anxious for my chocolate treat I often allow myself.
This all got me to thinking--God wants us to do and act in a certain way. His plan is for me to eat from His Word and to chew it up, swallow it into my life and allow it to help me grow and develop into a healthy strong child of God, developing into the person He intends for me to be. Sometimes I get careless and let His Bread of Life slide out of my life and do not eat from it regularly. Then I get the "hangries" and need to get back to the regular meal time schedule again.
Opening and closing my mouth and lips in imitation of what I was wanting that baby mouth to do made me wonder--does God want us to do what He wants bad enough that He, too, wants and is trying to show us what we should be doing, imitating Him? We only need to listen and look up and observe and then follow/imitate the example He has given us. Can't you just see our Father up in Heaven pursing His lips in an effort to compel us to "Eat and Swallow"?
Now might be a good time to get new habits going strong so that when the New Year comes, we will already be getting going on the resolution to spend time each day eating the Word of God!
