| Beloved, My family enjoys poking fun at how ridiculous I look while I sleep. I can’t blame them because though I have never seen myself sleeping, I can only imagine how silly I look. For one, after losing my neutral colored sleep mask, I inherited one of the boy’s green-and-brown camouflage masks which I wear to keep light from reaching my eyes. But if the camouflaged silk wasn’t bad enough, I also tape my mouth shut. I started doing this a couple years ago after reading about how breathing through your mouth while sleeping diminishes your sleep quality, dental health, and immune strength. As strange as it may sound, mouth tape has been a game changer for me. My grandpa always used to say, “It’s better to look good than to feel good.” But I tend to be of the conviction that it is better to feel good than to look good. So I willingly embrace a ridiculous appearance each night and the jokes from the family that come with it. But while mouth tape has brought with it certain physical benefits, the most important benefit has been spiritual. The last thing I do each night before I turn my bedside lamp off is to rip off a piece of paper tape and stick it to my lips, and most nights it brings with it a profound sense of relief. “No more talking!” As a husband, father, and pastor, I do a lot of talking. I’m constantly using words, either spoken or written. But every night my little mouth taping ritual is my way of saying, “Be silent, lips!” It has become my way of acknowledging that my creaturely lips need rest. I’m not intended to spew words ad infinitum. It has also become my way of acknowledging that God doesn’t need my creaturely lips. The Thompson family and Cornerstone Presbyterian Church are going to be just fine with a temporarily muzzled patriarch and pastor. Roughly one third of my life is spent with my lips sealed shut and my fingers untethered to a keyboard, and do you know what? The kingdom of God is no worse off for it. In my personal devotions this morning, I was reading about Moses’s commission, much of which focuses on the mouth of Moses. God speaks to this stuttering, ineloquent man and reminds him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Exodus 4:11-12). God is the Designer and Fashioner of the human mouth. He made the lips, teeth, tongue, vocal cords, and diaphragm. And in a stroke of His providence, He can take away their ability to express words. He is the one who makes mute. But by that same providential government, He can also uphold and enhance man’s mouth to speak with unmistakable clarity and breathtaking eloquence. Nightly mouth tape has become my way of expressing gratitude for the privilege of speaking on God’s behalf throughout the day, while simultaneously acknowledging that if I were to become mute the world would continue on just fine and the purposes of God would stand. Call me strange, but sticking tape to my lips has become a sanctifying ritual. But perhaps the greatest spiritual benefit has come, not through putting the tape on, but through ripping it off, responding to God’s new morning mercies by declaring, “Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee!” Yours in Christ, Pastor Nick |
