He's not. He never has been, and He never will be, at least not done in the way of giving up and wanting nothing more to do with. He's not done with you either. He loves you just as much when the idea of eating makes you nauseated as He does when you can't get enough. And maybe you've learned from experience that the anorexia does eventually end, or maybe you haven't because the answer to the question of appetite is no, no I'm not really hungry right now. Thank you but no, I'll eat when I'm hungry.
Yeah, but it really doesn't work that way. Yes it does. That's why I go shopping after a meal and not when I'm hungry. If I'm hungry I buy too much and everything I see looks delicious. If I eat first I don't want anything to eat. If I'm full it doesn't matter how good it looks, smells or experience tells me it is, the idea of eating will be sickening. I don't eat when I'm not hungry, and I can't eat when I'm full.
Ok, so that's how it works in the physical. But it's not how it is in the spiritual. Or maybe it is, but we have this misconception about our spiritual stomach that makes this correlation between the physical and spiritual seem inaccurate. We read things in the scripture such as walk in the fullness of the Spirit and be filled with the spirit. Some Christians even refer to themselves as Spirit filled. So maybe we get the idea that we can fill up, that we can satisfy our hunger for God to such an extent that we are full and therefore can't possibly eat another bite before we get hungry again. I don't know that it's never happened, but I haven't ever experienced it or seen it.
I do believe that I can leave the table satisfied but looking forward to the next meal. I've never been too full after dining with my Lord. Not that I'm sick, don't even suggest eating, I'm a gluttonous tick and I'm afraid if I eat one more bite I'll explode kind of full that I have actually felt in the physical. My wife is a really amazing cook.
No that's never happened to me spiritually. And I believe that the reason is one of two things. Either my stomach is so much bigger than I ever imagined and it's simply not possible to get that full in a single sitting, no matter how long I stay at the table, or I spent so much time starving myself that I have become ravenous trying to make up for the meals I missed. You know that feeling when you get hungry but can't or don't eat? After a while the hunger subsides and the feeling goes away. We think we're not hungry anymore, but our bodies know better. When the smell of something cooking hits us, the stomach clenches and demands attention as the mouth begins to water. We missed one meal and we feel like we're starving suddenly. I could eat it all myself our body seems to say. That first bite is both delicious and satisfying and at the same time activates something within us. We seem to get even more hungry as we eat...for a while. Then as we slow down our intake, we begin to feel satisfied and, if we are wise, we will stop eating before we eat past the point of fullness and make ourselves sick.
I believe that it as actually much like that in the spiritual. We are born hungry, whether we recognize the sensation or not. We react to that hunger by trying to satisfy it, but we don't know what is and isn't food. The things we consume to satisfy the hunger don't work. They may make us feel full at first, like drinking a big glass of water when skipping a meal, but before long we realize that whatever we had eaten was empty. We eat again and again and never find sustenance. We try different things, but everything is zero calorie, zero carb crap that can not sustain the spirit nor keep it healthy.
Finally one day, we heard the Spirit calling us to follow Christ. Our Creator loves us. That hunger we had was always for Him and for relationship with Him. That hole in our spiritual stomach was a craving that only He can fill. The nutritional needs of our spiritual life could only be met by eating from His table. And at His table we found life. We began to grow fat and healthy as we spent time with Him. But it's possible that you may never have been able to recognize your hunger for what it was. I assure you, no one has ever said yes to follow Jesus, has ever sought to find God, without being hungry for Him.
But what if we have hit a time of famine and missed so many meals that our appetite shut down to keep us from us from being driven crazy by need and miserable every minute, we became spiritually anorexic? What if we chose to go on a diet and starting eating supplements that quench the appetite but have no nutritional value whatsoever and killed our hunger? What if we're simply not hungry at the moment and feel like that means that we shouldn't eat?
Well, how about I address that last one first? We're not talking to about anyone who needs to lose weight spiritually. We are all underweight. We were all anorexic for too long and too often. We need to eat regularly, whether hungry or not. Been feeding regularly for years now? Maybe you're finally beginning to approach ideal body mass, but you'll not hit it on this side of eternity. Eat when you're hungry. Eat when you're not. You won't kill yourself with gluttony for the things of God. Our loss of appetite is not because we have eaten too much and gotten too full. Seriously how could we even tell ourselves that with a straight face? I prayed for 5 minutes this morning; I'm stuffed. I read a chapter from the Word; I couldn't eat another bite. Seriously? Maybe we were satisfied with breakfast, maybe it was enough for now, but it wasn't over filling. No matter how much we prayed, praised, worshiped or read this morning, we didn't stretch our spiritual stomachs. I promise.
Since we're going backwards. what if we filled up on junk food and fake supplements? When we fill up on tasty treats from the world we are not helping ourselves. You can eat sugar coated cardboard. It might almost taste good. It might make you feel full and kill your appetite for real food. You can eat it every day and think you're fine, but in reality you're staving yourself to death as cardboard is not food and your body begins to cannibalize itself for nourishment and bowel obstructions and other complications from eating things that were not meant to be food cause complications. The answer of course is simple. Ask the Great Physician to remove any obstructions and begin treating and healing the ill effects of eating non-food. Ask the Spirit for guidance and counseling to live free from the craving for non-food, to help you learn not to eat cardboard when there's free steak available, and to help us rewire our mind to stop seeing non-food as food and failing to see food for the delicious way to meet our needs that it is.
And we've finally arrived back at number one. What if we have been spiritually sick, anorexic, for so long that it's who we have become? We know we need to eat, but we can't get our appetite back. Those first few bites of prayer and the Word don't make us ravenous and even more hungry. They don't even taste like food. They in no way trigger a finally, I can eat response. There is no mouth watering. Everything within us wants to say this doesn't taste right or good, I'm not hungry, and push the plate away after a single bite, or perhaps even after only looking at it and considering a single bite. For far too long we have been wasting away as we refused to eat at all or filled up on ice cubes, card board and cotton. Now the real thing doesn't make us hungry, and we can't seem to eat.
We read the Word and it doesn't taste like a perfectly cooked steak. It doesn't even taste as good as the card board did. It's dry and bland and we're getting nothing, absolutely nothing, out of it. We try to pray, and our mind goes from Our Father to I need to pick up toilet paper when I go to the store faster than we can say attention lost. It's not working, so why bother? The answer is because anorexics need to eat. The answer is because if you don't learn to eat you'll die. The answer is that even if it doesn't taste right or feel good or seem like it's providing you with anything, it is. It may feel unnatural and pointless at first, but the truth is every bite is helping you heal. The nutrition from the steak is beginning to stop the starvation. It doesn't matter that the mind doesn't realize and understand what is happening. The spirit is being fed, just as with a physical anorexic, it may not seem to help or work to eat a nutritious meal but the body appreciates it, even if the mind doesn't. Maybe we have to eat a hundred bites, a thousand, or more, to start tasting deliciousness when we eat. How long it takes to recover depends on our willingness to eat and how long we have been sick.
But the healing of our messed up taste buds will happen. Just eat. Our Father, hold on while I jot down what I need at the store, thank you, where was I, who is in heaven, I praise and honor Your name. What am I going to fix for dinner? Maybe pork chops. Let Your will be done in my life and on earth as it..no, I think chicken...where was I, oh yeah, let Your will be done.... just spend time dining with Daddy. If it's just a minute or two, just a bite or two, at first, scattered and tasteless, eat. You have to relearn what your body should naturally understand. And the same with reading the Word. Take a bite, no matter how dry and tasteless it may seem at first. You're getting more out of it than you realize. And one day, it will become a succulent treat.
It doesn't matter if you have never knowingly triggered your hunger for God, or if it's just been a while. Don't wait till you feel hungry. Eat. Eat more. Eat again. You treat anorexia with food and counseling. So dine with Daddy and let the Counselor do His work. Step 11 says that we Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. It doesn't say anything about seeking God when we feel like it, when our appetite drives us to. If we become healthy (healthier), this step will become about answering the appetite and being hungry for God. But until then, while we are starting and still in recovery for spiritual anorexia, it still says we sought. Seek Him. Eat. Act like you're hungry and eat regularly, even if you're not. The time will come when taste and appetite return and you look forward to dining with Daddy.
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