Spiritual Feeding

Psalm 42:1, "As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God."

Throughout the Bible, Jesus is sometimes referred to as the bread of life. (See John 6:35). We read stories in the New Testament about Jesus saying that if we drink of the water He gives us, we will never thirst again. (See John 4:14).

How many of you know the importance of giving your physical body daily replenishment? We need water to clean out our systems and keep us healthy. We need food to nourish us and give us the strength and energy for the day.

Not only do we have a physical body, but we also have a spiritual body. Sometimes we forget that just as much as our physical body needs water and food to survive, our spiritual body does too.

Lately, I've been thirsty and hungry spiritually. There have been moments where I've thought about how all I want to do is have time in the morning to wake up and spend time with God without having to look at the clock to make sure I'm not running late for anything else.

Life has been busy! I've had quite a few hours at work. I'm still going out of town two to three times a week. There have been many people in my life I've been spending time with lately. There were people I promised I'd crochet stuff for, and I needed to get those things finished. All of these things are good things. In fact, some of these things included going to church. However, I was finding that spiritually, although I had spent small amounts of time with God, I was longing for Him. I was longing for close, intimate time with Him... just the two of us.

I have a tendency when I get busy to not eat. I get wrapped up in whatever I'm doing and think, "I'll just eat when I get home." But when I get home at 11:30 at night, I usually think it's not really worth it and will end up eating something really small and not that good for me, or I'll skip eating. My mom literally has to remind me, "Taylor, I don't mind if you go do that, but please eat first."

Sometimes in my walk with God when life gets busy, I need to remind myself, "Those things you're doing are all good things, but you can't leave out the most important thing... your time with God. You need to spiritually feed yourself and drink of that living water daily."

Don't get me wrong, I'd still read a little bit of the Bible almost every day, but I was having spiritual snacks and not taking the time to eat a good, healthy meal. Eventually, I was feeling the affects of it.

Have you had your spiritual feeding today?

I encourage you to take time with God and spend time nourishing your spiritual body. It will affect everything in your life!

Dear Jesus,

I must admit that I've allowed my schedule to be so busy lately that to sit down and have a good, solid spiritual meal has been lacking in my life. I do the same thing with feeding my spiritual body as I do with my physical body. I run out the door with a banana and a bottle of water and hope that will sustain me until lunch. Then I grab fast food and hope that will somehow give me good nourishment even though I know it isn't what's best for me. Help me make time in my schedule to eat meals with You rather than constantly being on the go and eating quick spiritual bananas as I run out the door. I don't want to work You around my schedule. I desire to work my schedule around You. Help me live that out. In Jesus' Name.

Amen.