Food For Your Soul

Food For Your Soul

Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People need more than bread for their life; they must feed on every word of God.’ ” –Matthew 4:4

When some people are going through intense grief, they lose their appetite. How often I have wished this would be my experience! It seems only fair that if I have to experience all the yucky stuff of grief, I should get the side benefit of weight loss without effort. My friend Angela, however, could barely get anything down for weeks after her husband, Wes, died suddenly. She simply had no appetite for food. Neither did she have an appetite for God’s Word at first. “I didn’t want to hear that God would be a Father to the fatherless,” she told me. “I wanted Wes to be here to father my children. And I didn’t want to hear that God would take care of me. I wanted Wes to take care of me.” But after a while, acceptance of her loss and a growing awareness of her need awoke in her a voracious appetite for God’s Word that she had never known after a lifetime spent in the church. Finding herself stripped of the security of a husband and struggling with the loneliness of loss, nothing less would satisfy.

For too much of my life, I haven’t really believed that I need to feed on every word of God. Sure, it was a nice addition to my life if I was in the mood, but I didn’t think I really needed it. Of course I would never have said this out loud, but the real test of what we believe is what we do. I might say that I believe I need to exercise, but if I don’t exercise, I obviously don’t believe it. I see it as beneficial but optional. But Jesus said, “These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on” (Matthew 7:24, The Message).

Have you come to the place where you truly believe that the survival of your soul is dependent on the extent to which you feed on the Word of God? Or have you so stuffed yourself with the junk food of entertainment, the sweetness of mere sentimentality, or the meaningless filling of busyness that you have dulled your appetite for the words of life? The Word of God satisfies your most profound hunger, your soul hunger for truth and meaning.

Food for my soul, why do I settle for snacking on this world’s confections when you offer to nourish my soul with your very words of life? Satisfy me with your truth and sustain me with nothing less than yourself.

DIGGING DEEPER