Years ago while I was still living the “hey kids let’s meet your cousins at the indoor playground for lunch” phase of my mothering, my sister and I loaded our pack of babies and hauled ourselves to the local Chic-Fil-A. I sat down, consumed a full tasty fast food meal, while chatting with my sister for an hour. We watched our kids play and unashamedly took over their neglected waffle fries. After everyone was completely indoor-playgrounded out, I found myself hungry all over again. What is that? I just ate. How can that even be a thing?
Come on Krisi, you have a degree in Nutrition… use your big girl brain!
I suppose it makes sense. Fast food is really not very fulfilling. Although it is usually very tasty and totally easy to consume, we are well aware of the misleading magic of the fast food trifecta. Fat. Sugar. Salt. (All of which I have a decent affection for). However, our fast and flavorful meal, will likely lead us down the road to empty when it comes to satiety and nourishment.
After our carefully orchestrated fast food trip designed for #kidfriendlyfun and a morsel of adult conversation with my sister… My mind began formulating all of these spiritual parallels in my own life. Related to food and the body.
Have you ever found yourself lacking substantial nourishment for your soul. I’ve been there! There have been times where I felt discouraged and defeated spiritually and I kid you not, when I took a hot minute to examine why, it was usually related to how I had been neglecting the nourishment of my soul. Just like food does the work of giving our body the energy and nutrients it needs, the same is true for how God uses His Word (the Bible) to nourish our soul.
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:35 NIV
Living in a fast paced, quickly consumable, immediately gratifying culture has it’s downsides y’all. It can condition us towards spiritual apathy. Often we are reluctant to even slow down enough to recognize our spiritual out-of-shapeness. It’s just so easy to grab our little bite of a verse or a word or an inspirational thought from a million places 24/7.
Let’s make an agreement OK? Let us be bold enough in seeking God to ask ourselves this question… Are we trying to get by on fast food faith without any sort of regular substantial nourishment?
God’s word and his Holy Spirit are the ones that do the actual transformation of our hearts and lives. It is however, up to us to choose whether we allow ourselves to be fed on truth or empty calories. Whether we are going to dive deep into real tangible food for our souls… reading, memorizing, and wrestling with the living word of God, or just try and get by on surface consumption.
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:14 ESV
Hear me friends! I will never turn away a verse of the day, Instagram or Twitter truth bomb, or the fruit of another’s time spent with God. God uses his truth no matter the delivery method, period. But, like my Chic-Fil-A meal, fast food faith will only satisfy for so long and ultimately be void of vital ingredients necessary for our spiritual growth.
The radical thing about God is that he desires to provide everything we need for a nourished soul. We matter to Him. Our faith matters to Him.
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
II Peter 1:3 NLT
Like those babies pictured above that my sister and I hauled to Target and indoor playgrounds and a million other places. We too are created for connection and purpose.
Our babies eventually outgrow playground time and happy meals. Then one day, in the blink of an eye, our adult conversations, are with them. Our mama heart will overwhelmingly desire to connect and interact with our adult babies on a deeper level and be compelled to love them regardless of their imperfections. This mama desire, as powerful as it may be, is a mere glimpse of the love our Heavenly Father embodies for us.
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!
I John 3:1 NLT
As parents, we happily offer a quick hug or fast answer or provide a grab and go snack for our children. But imagine if drive-through interaction was the pattern of our relationship with them. How fractured and unfulfilling would the relationship be after a while.
God is waiting. For you and for me. No matter where we are in our growth. Shallow level faith alone is unable to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls. What step can you and I take today that will move us toward our loving Father who created us for connection with Himself?
Here are a few suggestions that have cultivated a deep dive kind of faith in my own life…
- Pray. Pray. Pray. Ask God for the desire to know him.
- Start a Bible reading plan. This is a great place to start.
- Pick a book of the Bible and read it or listen to it or both… from start to finish each day for a month. Write down what God shows you. (choose a short book obvs)
- Begin a prayer journal. I started with this one years ago and it was a game changer.
- Seek out a mentor. Which doesn’t have to be a hugely formal thing. But can simply be positioning yourself to meet with women you can learn from and be encouraged by.
- Get up at the crack of dawn before all those babies and meet in the quiet stillness with God. Pray. Read. Confess. Ask. Repeat.
- Tell others about what God is teaching you.
- Surround yourself with women who are chasing the same kind of spiritual nourishment.
God has called us to so much more than fast food faith. He has called and uniquely equipped each of us to jump into the story He is writing. The story of redeeming his people and using them to make an impact that will last well beyond this life. Let’s seek Him, sit down, and be satisfied.
XOXO,
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