Excerpt from Throwing Grapes and Moving Mountains, a devotional journey for the hungry heart.

Available on: Westbowpress. com and Amazon. Com. 11 The Sigh of Jesus
They brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored Him to lay His hand on him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva; and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, Ephphatha! that is, Be opened! And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. (Mark 7:3236) During His earthly ministry, Jesus went about healing, helping, and preaching the kingdom good news. His healing spoke to His authority and power over all illness, every evil spirit, and even death itself. His acts of healing verified both His identity as the Son of God and His divine ministry to an often spiritually deaf and blind people. It was His joy to do the will of the Father and reach out to touch those who approached Him with sincere hearts of faith. As His ministry unfolded, the crowds became thick, and demands for help were unceasing. He often drew aside from the crowd to sit in communion with God the Father in order to be equipped for the next step in His earthly journey. This displayed the unique marriage of both the human and divine nature of our Lord. As God, Jesus knew the heart of this deaf man, and even before healing him, He knew how he would respond. It is no different today. He knows how we will handle every blessing and every trial before they cross our path. Even though Jesus warned him to remain quiet, Jesus knew that this soon-to-be-healed man would joyously proclaim his good news to anyone who would listen. Perhaps this is why He sighed. He poured out of Himself healing power to meet the needs of one who would then in his joy blatantly disobey Jesus command to remain silent in regard to the loosening of his tongue and clearing of his ears. It was not the right time to declare the glory and healing of Jesus. Is it any different today? When Jesus meets us in a profound way, our immediate response is often to run out and tell our nearest neighbor. Just like this man in Scripture, we want to stand on the rooftops and proclaim the good news! At times this is very appropriate, but not always. Jesus sees each piece of the puzzle, and He knows how each one needs to fit together to bring God the greatest glory. Those puzzle pieces even include the parameters and attitudes of our praise! An aptly spoken word can bring much joy and enlightenment to the hearer, but a word spoken rashly, without the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit, can actually fall down upon the recipients spirit like salt hitting a raw wound. We do not know what burdens our brethren are carrying, and if we are carried away by the emotion of the moment, we will be impervious to the gentle nudges of the Spirit when He prompts us to remain silent. When we respond to a move of God with unbridled exuberance and unknowingly wound a brother or sister, God sighs. There are seasons for the outpouring of the joy welling up in our spirits, and there are times to hold them close to our hearts and ponder, like Mary, all that God has shown us. There is an appropriate time for each, and when we run ahead of God and share the fruit before it is completely ripe, we subvert the full intention God had to bring forth from that good word, kind touch, or personal revelation. It is intensely humbling to realize that we even need to bring our praises underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but why would it be any different when we have given Him everything that is in us at the moment of

salvation? We are His, for He bought us with an inestimable price. He is due all of our praise and glory for now and all of eternity. Yet He also is to be Lord over the expression of our praise, whether it is held close to our hearts or shared far and wide. As in everything, we need to look to Him for guidance and listen closely to His directions. When we act purely on impulse, we set Jesus sighing once again. How I want to bring my Jesus pleasure and joy rather than cause a heavenly sigh. By Gods grace, let us lean in closer to Him and listen intently to not only His directions but the heartbeat and pulse behind His instructions that always point to the immeasurable love and patience of our Father.