Daily Devotional for Thursday, December 11

Zacharias Worshiped

“And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God,” Luke 1:57-63.

Have you ever played the quiet game? Or perhaps as a parent or grandparent, have you ever administrated the quiet game? It is a simple game with a simple premise. The participants are not allowed to speak or to even make any noise at all. It sounds simple, but it is much harder to do than you think it is.

As a dad, there have been many road trips where I have had my kids play the quiet game. The instructions are always the same; the first person to talk or make any noise loses the game. And usually, within just a couple of minutes, we have already crowned a winner! For some reason, prohibiting someone from talking makes them want to talk.

I wonder how hard it was for Zacharias not to be able to talk for months. God had shut his mouth up because of his unbelief (Luke 1:20), but the angel of the Lord had also promised that this inability to speak would only last until his son John was born (verse 20). If you were unable to speak for months and then suddenly regained that ability, what would you say? When the child was born, Elizabeth said his name would be John, and Zacharias affirmed that by writing “his name is John” (verse 63). Immediately God restored his ability to talk.

So, what did Zacharias do? Did he yell in celebration? Did he call out to his new baby boy or his wife? No, he did not. He praised God. How many of us would worship God with our first words? How many of us actually verbally praise God now, when we can speak any time that we like? I am humbled when I consider that of all the things Zacharias could have said, he used his restored ability to speak praise to our God. Would you do that?

JUST A THOUGHT

If God still took away man’s ability to talk because of unbelief, would you be able to speak?

Chris Floyd