I once heard someone say, ‘I’ll make him eat his words!’ and the thought intrigued me. How on earth can anyone eat his words?
Words are such curious things, and they do take on life as we know from the poems and hymns we remember from our childhood. I was reminded of this the other day when a friend gave me a copy of the old poem, ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling. Two lines from it brought back a flood of memories –
‘Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools.’
My life seems to be a life of using worn-out tools because most authorities today tell me my tools are no longer valid. They are worn out and should be discarded.
You see, I take the words of the Old Testament and from so many quarters I hear that the Old Testament is no longer a valid tool.
But I read in the gospel of John that ‘the Word became flesh and made his home among us’ and the word that became Jesus could only be the words of the Old Testament. The New Testament had not been written until after he lived his life, so it was the Old Testament that gave us Jesus.
In that Old Testament there were the words written with the Lord’s own finger. Then he gave us our own history, detailed in the very first chapters we read. He also showed us the violence and corruption that becomes normal when we choose worldly lives above worshipful lives. (Genesis 6).
In the history of Israel he demonstrates how to prepare his followers for the coming of the Word in the flesh and he gave it all to Moses in the forty days and nights Moses spent up in the mountain with him. Exodus 24:12, and 15 to 18.
The first five Books of our modern Bibles throb with life and are part of the ‘word that became flesh.’ John 1:14.
So when I watch the things I gave my life to, broken, I remember the poet’s advice. I stoop in prayer and build them up with worn-out tools.
Elizabeth Price