Spiritual Nutrition

Let’s talk about fat! It seems like fat is a big topic of conversation in overweight America. Let’s see what we know about it.

Fat has only two good characteristics: it insulates us a little better from the cold, and it gives us a little better calorie reserve to prevent starvation. That’s it! That’s all it’s good for. But there is a lot that it is bad for. It is hard on the heart and blood circulation, the extra weight is hard on the knees and ankles, etc., etc., etc.

How do we get fat? “That’s easy,” you say - “We overeat!” America does overeat, but there is more to our fat than that.

People with bulimia overeat, but they don’t get fat. Why? Because they throw it back up before it has a chance to digest and absorb. Ugh!
It is not what we EAT that makes us fat - it is what we DIGEST and ABSORB. Granted that for most people this amounts to the same thing. But besides the deliberate bulimics, there are other differences in individual food metabolism.

Scientists have wondered why some people can eat large calorie meals for years without putting on weight, while others seemingly gain weight very easily on much lower calorie eating. Some stay thin all their lives while others seem to be born fat and just get worse. Why? DIGESTION and ABSORBTION!

A long term scientific study has just been completed (the details of which are too gross to go into) which shows that for a certain percentage of people, a large amount of food passes through their system basically unabsorbed. Some people can eat heartily and not get fat because much of their food does not ABSORB.

People today want to avoid getting fat, so we live in the age of “fat substitutes”. A while back, scientists came up with a no-calorie fat substitute to use in margarine, cheese, and other high fat content foods. And it even tasted pretty good! Great! No calories to eat - no calories to digest. But the problem was, it couldn’t be used in cooking because it broke down under heat.

So the scientists went back to work and, marvel of marvels, announced a new fat substitute that will not break down under heat. You can fry french fries in it perfectly. But it works in a different way. It IS a fat. It contains plenty of fat calories alright. But it is a special artificially created form of fat which will not DIGEST! It passes right through the system without absorbing. Great! Now we have calories we can eat - but which the body can’t digest and use. Sounds likes a glutton’s delight, right?

Nope! We still have a problem. There are such things as fat soluble vitamins which we need to digest to stay healthy. And, wouldn’t you know it, this new stuff attracts all the fat soluble vitamins in our other foods to it and carries those with it right through undigested. So the new stuff is going to make us sick if we don’t find ways to get our fat soluble vitamins. Oh, the problems of the scientific age!

Okay. You’ve heard everything about fat that you care too. What’s my point? I do have a point to make about eating and digestion - spiritual food and spiritual nutrition.

Now no honest Christian will deny that we have today a great deal of preaching. In local churches, over radio and TV, in home Bible-study groups, and in many other ways, God’s Word is being shared. But I believe that this same honest Christian will have to admit that there is today a breakdown between the hearing of the Word and the practicing of it in daily life. People mark their Bibles, fill their notebooks, and file away their precious cassettes; but somehow the power of the Word often doesn’t get into the decisions and activities of daily life.

The truth gets into our notebooks, and possibly into our brains, but it often never reaches the total soul — the intellect, the emotion and the will. Why? WE DO NOT TAKE TIME TO MEDITATE ON WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED.

What digestion and absorption is to the body, meditation is to the SOUL!
If you ate nourishing food but never absorbed it, you would slowly die. I wonder if some of our Christian “hearing of the Word” is not like what goes on with our eating. We go to the meeting; we listen to the teacher or preacher; we quickly swallow it all down in correct outlines; then we rush off to something else. We do not take time to think, ponder, question, reflect, relate, or apply. We do not digest and absorb it! The sad result is a great gap between learning and living.

Whether we like it or not, it takes time to grow spiritually. Too many of us are caught up in the modern rat race, and we simply do not take time to DIGEST the Word of God. Are we cultivating a fast-food faith when we should be taking time for spiritual growth?

You may say, “That’s easy for you to say to slow down. You’re retired. You’re out of the business rat race. But I ‘m not re-tired, I’m just TIRED!”

Yes, I may be blessed with more free time than many. But I have found it true in life that we all will find time for the things that we put first! And is there anything a human being should put before having a relationship with the Creator who made him?

You may have heard about the explorer who was penetrating a difficult area of the jungle and wanted to keep going, but his native bearers would not move. “We have been going too fast,” they explained, “and we must wait here for our souls to catch up with our bodies.” Not a bad “savage” reason for sitting still!
There is a subtle danger in cramming ourselves full of Bible knowledge that never really gets into our inner person. We start equating knowledge with spirituality, and activity with ministering service. And then we start living on “fat substitutes” and we see our spiritual “vitamins” pass away. And we begin to wither. The total soul must be nourished with food and meditation to have the flow of the Life of Christ from within the spirit.

You and I may not be able to control all that data that flows to us from church services, Bible study and discussions, but we can control WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE RECEIVE.

What might happen to our practical Christian walk if we drove home from church in quiet meditation instead of listening to the car radio or a new music cassette? Or if we spent at least a few minutes at home alone with Christ instead of immediately turning on the television or picking up the newspaper?

Radical? Perhaps; but the malady is so serious that we need radical measures! Even the secular world is promoting all kinds of “meditation”, and harassed people are paying hundreds of dollars just to learn how to sit and be quiet and think.

And, wonder of wonders, as we meditate on and digest what we know about the Father and Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit prods us into a personal relationship, a divine relationship of trust and guidance - we absorb the love and life of God.

There is an old saying of nutritionists that “you are what you eat!” But, as we have seen, this is not necessarily the case.

But it is certainly true that, in both body and soul,
YOU ARE WHAT YOU DIGEST AND UTILIZE!

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