Growing physically necessitates changes in our diet. As a baby, we transition from liquids to solids. As youth, our palette changes as we try new foods. As adults, we progress toward healthy choices that are the best fuel for our body. That is the goal, anyway!
We can learn the facts of having a healthy diet and how it will impact our life. We can skim through recipes and maybe even purchase some ingredients for a few healthy meals. But, until we make it and eat it, it is just a lofty goal. And, until we choose to continually eat healthy, our bodies will not gain the ideal effects.
We also are to feed our souls - with God’s Word. This, too, progresses with desiring, planning, and savoring it in our heart and mind. Time spent with the Lord is foundational to growing in relationship with him. Our days are full of things to do, so we need to be intentional with when, where, and how we will spend time with the Lord each day. As we meet with him regularly and meaningfully, we will sense the Holy Spirit’s workings in our life.
If we are not in the habit of spending time with the Lord – in praise, prayer, reading his Word and meditating on it – it can be challenging to even get started or to develop that as a priority. Eventually, though, this habit becomes our desire and our fuel for the day. As we grow in our faith, our bites of nourishment get bigger and more varied.
The writer of Hebrews, in chapter 5:12-14, comments on the difference between spiritual milk and solid food. As milk is given to infants, the elementary truths of God’s word are given to new believers. However, as believers continue to live their lives in submission to the Lord, they need more nourishment for spiritual growth. Then, as they receive more nourishment, they want to submit to God’s ways; the benefits are overwhelming desired. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (v 14, NIV).
In Colossians 2:6, Paul gives encouragement to continue to live out the truths of Jesus as Savior and Lord, rooted in him and built up in him. Believers are to be strengthened in the faith, having been taught the truth. And, Jesus followers are to be overflowing with thankfulness!
In order to grow in our faith, we need to continue to learn spiritual truths and let God examine our heart and our mind so that we can grow in righteousness…. one bite at a time.