The Bread of Life

Where to start?

I confess I'm not very good at unstructured blogging. Lately, my blog has evolved into having my "theme days" which are straight forward posts, but then I also want to keep up with journaling my life. It's harder to do this type of blogging as I'm looking for some type of theme in my life or taking some time to reflect and having something interesting to share. Life has been pretty busy enjoying fall and lots of activities with J and our family.

Lately in my personal reflection time, a topic that keeps surfacing is CONSUMPTION. (Merriam Webster definition: The utilization of economic goods in the satisfaction of wants.) The question keeps coming to me of, "What am I consuming?" I feel the Lord at work in me to look at this deeper...looking at it physically, mentally, spiritually. So many things I spend my time consuming......consuming food, God's word, consuming books/movies/music, consuming by shopping, consuming loads of things from the internet (facebook updates, blogs I love to visit, Christian podcasts, email). These are some of the things the Lord's brought to mind.

In looking deeper, and through my recent study of God's word through the Lord's Table, I have the sense that I'm filling up on lots of things, but I'm only scratching the surface of filling up on Christ. This study has been so powerful as I've been reviewing so many verses related to food and the Lord. The main point coming across is that there is a food that satisfies, and it's not physical food. It's Jesus, the Bread of Life. There is so much to that, yet I'll have to take more time later to unravel that in a post. I am seeing how often I am going to a "quick and easy fix" to fill me up based on what kind of hunger I have (physical/mental/spiritual). I'm being challenged to take a fresh approach to filling myself by instead feasting on the Lord. That could be through worship, through reading his word, through being still and reflecting on him, through prayer). I have an anticipation about what the Lord wants to do in this, yet I also know it is one thing to see and acknowledge this in myself, and something wholly different to act on it. So I press on ahead to see where this journey takes me next.

John 4:32-34 (New International Version)

³²But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

³³Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"

³⁴"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

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Another question I want to visit sometime soon is "What does it mean to be 'in the world but not of the world'?"

1 John 2:15-17 (New International Version)

Do Not Love the World

¹⁵Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Picture credit: www.neatnik2009.wordpress.com