Impediment

“‘Eph′phatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’” (Mark 7:35).

Reflection (Pieter Lastman)

I have been thinking about the miracles of the Gospel. 

There were times when Christ allowed the blind to see and the deaf to hear.  He cleansed people of evil spirits.  He healed the lepers.  He allowed the dead to come back to life.

And he helped the dumb to speak.

“Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decap′olis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, ‘Eph′phatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.” (Mk 7:31-37).

And I have been reflecting on those words of Christ.  After all, He is GOD.  GOD is the WORD, He does not need to USE the word.  He can instead just think a thing and it will be because He is perfect, and He is God.  Instead, He chose to use words, and not just any words, specific words…  “‘Eph′phatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’”

There was an impediment of speech and as a result of that impediment, the man could not speak.  And Christ did not say, SPEAK.  He said, BE OPENED.  And that means something in my mind today.  It means that Christ knew that there was something holding this man back.  There was something stopping this man from “being opened”.

And I have been thinking about that today.  You see, I feel that I need to hear those words from my Beloved.  After all, I spend a great deal of my life speaking, but in a way, I have a spiritual impediment of speech.  In a way I am unable to speak to my Beloved in the way that He desires.  And I fill my days with a multitude of distractions and instead of being able to make progress in the ways that God has outlined to me, I am completely impaired.

And today I pray for the Grace to ask my Beloved to remove the impediment to my soul.  For I have my own impediment that holds me back from loving my Father the way that He would like me to love Him.  And when I stop and think about that, everything else is worthless and comes to nothing.  Because the only thing that I can do is to pray for the Grace to “be opened”.  For without that, I have no way of loving my God…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.