“… to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
(Deuteronomy 8: 3)
We here in British Columbia, Canada, are enjoying a visit from the Royal family as Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge are presently representing the Queen and seeing this incredible and beautiful part of the world. They are a charming young couple and both seem to have the knack of relating to the everyday person who has lined the road to catch a glimpse of them. Watching them on the television, I was constantly impressed with the way they did not just wave their hands to the adoring crowd, but stopped frequently, to chat to individuals. How do they do that? I asked myself. Surely muttering some meaningless words would not leave the recipient impressed. I was wrong. During an interview with one such recipient of these words, I was surprised to hear that no they were not meaningless words, the Royal couple seemed to be genuinely interested in the answers and always had some background knowledge of wherever they currently were. This made me think of that wise Book of Proverbs.
“A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” (Proverbs 25: 11)
We have all probably experienced words not aptly spoken and how hurtful they can be and how quickly they can destroy relationships. The ever wise author of Proverbs puts this into perspective; 
“Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Proverbs 12: 18)
Many of us have regretted reckless words coming from our own mouths as words can escape our mouths so quickly before we can stop them and of course once uttered, have already done their damage.
So how do we go about making sure what comes out of our mouths are meaningful words?
When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness and perhaps being provoked to utter the wrong response, he uses God’s own words to come out of his mouth.
“Jesus answered, “It is written: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”” (Matthew 4: 4)
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to control my outbursts with my own methods of self-control, but I have realised that I am always going to need the help of the Holy Spirit to allow those words, “aptly spoken” to come from my mouth.
The solution is to honestly want pleasant words to be part of our every day conversation whoever we may be conversing with during the day, even if it is a particularly annoying person, or someone we have a grievance with, so to achieve this we need to ask (for me every day) to have our mouths filled with God’s words and when we do, listen to his gracious answer;
“I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand…” (Isaiah 51: 16)
I love gardening, but now as we live in an apartment building, I have to be content to pursue my hobby on two balconies on which I have crammed as many pots as I can so bursts of beautiful colours not only bring me joy, but bring delight to passers by. I have reserved one corner for herbs, as cooking is another one of my fun tasks. This corner receives a lot of sun, so the herbs flourish and produce and abundant crop for me to use during the summer. Last summer I retrieved a pot I had stored away for the winter and when I looked inside the soil was as hard as a rock. I realised it needed a lot of work before the soil was ready to receive my intended herb planting.
tep is to see that the word is firmly planted and has strong roots so it will resist any attempts to dislodge it. I love how the psalmist describes how he will do this;
A beautiful thing. The word beautiful conjures up many images and perhaps nature springs to mind when we think of the astounding beauty found in majestic mountain peaks to tiny perfect little flowers nestled in the grass. Perhaps gazing at a little baby fills us with wonder at the beauty of the human form, but the word beautiful can also be attributed to an action and I was struck by this while reading the story of Jesus being anointed and how Jesus describes the woman’s gracious, generous breaking of the alabaster jar and pouring the expensive perfume over his head;
Sometimes we may wonder if we can contribute anything to furthering the kingdom or spreading the good news to others. If we begin to compare ourselves to others who are being lauded for great missionary work or others whose oratory draws hundreds to listen, or those whose books everybody wants to read, we feel useless and unworthy to be called children of God. Jesus was making it quite clear this was not true. It is just a matter of doing what we can!
It may be befriending a lonely neighbour, being patient with a difficult co-worker, visiting a shut in, comforting a friend struggling with self worth. God is not expecting us to take on mighty tasks we are not capable of doing. We only need to do what we can, in his name, and then it becomes a beautiful thing.
Quite a few years ago my husband and I were attending the Alpha course 2 and during one of the sessions Nicky Gumble used a powerful little story to illustrate how having a lot of knowledge about a subject and actually taking it to heart and using it, were vastly different. The story went something like this. A young man was given a new very expensive car from his uncle, delivered to his home. He carefully took the owner’s manual from the car and spent many days studying every detail of the engine and some days he opened the door and admired the immaculate inside. Eventually his uncle came to see how he liked the car and the boy could recite all the details on how the engine worked, Then the uncle asked, “How do you like driving it?” The boy was surprised and answered, “Oh I haven’t driven it!”
Jesus, himself, became very angry with the teachers of the law who were taking pride in their knowledge of the law, but not putting it into practice and what was even worse, hindering others from experiencing the joy of living God’s word.
But the next step is the most important one, this beautiful knowledge needs to be stored deep in our hearts. What a pity not to take this final step. The boy in the story who only knew all about his car mechanically, was missing out on the joy of driving his car. When we hide God’s word in our hearts we have the joy of actually living with and walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
When I start to think about bread, a friend who is the most incredible baker of bread I have ever known, always pops into my head. When she offers to come and see us and bring us some of her fresh baked bread, there is no hesitation in our voices as we agree wholeheartedly we would love to see her (of course not only for that delicious bread). Bread in its various forms has been the most widely consumed food in the whole world for thousands of years, even going back to pre-historic times when it is thought early man mixed gruel with water and let it dry into a paste. Tracing its various components, shapes, recipes through the world’s ethnic groups is quite fascinating and I found it to be a very enlightening study as I was getting ready to write this blog.
When I was a child, the Lord’s prayer was said every morning at school before actual classes began, but as no one ever explained it to us children we just rattled it off without thinking what it could possibly mean. It wasn’t until I became an adult and a committed Christian that I discovered the powerful message behind those beautiful words and it was only just recently that I grasped the importance of give us our daily bread.
we begin, we ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate these beautiful words so they minister to our souls.
God Speaking 