Do You Eat Well Spiritually?

Good Eating Habits

We have every reason, then, to develop good spiritual eating habits. The reality  is, however, that many pick at their spiritual food, some even starving themselves totally.  They can be like individuals who do not see the importance of a proper diet until they suffer the consequences in later life.  Healthy Eating gives this reason why we may be careless about our eating habits, though we know that good eating is essential for life:  "The trouble  is that [as a consequence of poor eating habits] there is no rapid deterioration in health, no sudden result such as follows careless crossing of the road.  Instead, there may be  a very slow, insidious deterioration of one's health, infections may be more readily caught, bones may be more fragile, healing of wounds  and recovery from disease may be slower."

In extreme cases one may become like a young woman who suffers from anorexia nervosa.  She convinces herself that she needs  little food, that she is perfectly well, despite the fact that she is wasting away physically. In the end  she loses all desire to eat.  "It is a dangerous condition,"  says a medical reference work. Why? "Although the patient seldom literally dies of starvation she becomes severely under-nourished and may succumb to what should be trivial infection." 

One Christian woman admitted:  "For years I struggled with knowing the need for regular meeting preparation and personal study and yet never being able to do it."  She eventually  did make changes so that she became a good student of God's Word, but only when she fully recognized the urgency of her situation.

Take to heart, then, the advice that the apostle Peter gave.  Become like "newborn infants," and "form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word, that through it you may grow to salvation."  (1 Peter 2:2) Yes, "form a longing"-cultivate a strong desire-to fill your mind and heart with  the knowledge of God. Spiritual adults also need to keep on nurturing that longing.  Do not let spiritual food become 'one of the most abused of your possessions.' Eat well spiritually, and benefit to the full from all the "healthful words" found in God's Word, the Bible. -2 Timothy 1:13, 14. 

Next time: Be Watchful Satan Wants to Devour You!

From the Watchtower magazine, 1997