What if.....?

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it (Ps. 81:10)

I have put my words in your mouth

and covered you with the shadow of my hand-- (Is.51:16)

John replied:  A man can receive only what is given to him from heaven....for the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit withou limit (Jn. 3:27 & 34).

What if our task in life were to receive what God wants to give us? 

What if we were supposed to be purified and cleansed vessels to hold the grace of God?

What if we emptied ourselves of foolish words and concerns so as to hold the words that God wants to speak to the world through us?

John the Baptist went out to the desert, not so much to escape the world around him, but to better hear and receive the words of God for that world.  Paul, upon suddenly meeting the Lord on the road to Damascus, went for three years into the desert of Arabia, shutting off all contact with the temple, Jewish practice, and his family so that he could receive all that God wanted to pour into him.  Jesus, after His baptism by John, went out into the wilderness for 40 days so that He could "open wide his mouth" and be filled with the words of God. 

Unlike Paul, John the Baptist, and Jesus, we may not have the luxury of going into the desert, shutting ourselves off from the world so as to receive the very words of God into our souls, minds, and hearts.  We may have to do the same things by teaspoons and minutes instead of by months and years.  But what if we saw as our mission in life to receive what God wants to pour out into the world through us?  Would we be tuned in to receive the gifts of God?  Less tuned in to the distractions and amusements the world has to offer?

I think of the great scientists, composers, poets, writers, men of medicine who were open to the revelations of God.  I think of Handel, and Beethoven, and Mozart.  I think of George Washington Carver, of Einstein, of Marie Curie.  I think of General Honore, of Shakespeare, and of C.S. Lewis.  I think of Mother Teresa, of the Benedictine women mystics of the 12th and 13th centuries, and of Julian of Norwich.  All these people opened their souls to God and received inestimable gifts for the world around them, for their time and forever.  Has God stopped pouring out His gifts, or have we stopped receiving them?

The Spirit of God is rich and giving without limit.  How, then, shall we receive?