Spiritual Malnourishment

Have you ever felt hungry? What do you do when you’re hungry? You eat right? It’s pretty simple. 

What about spiritual hunger? Have you ever experienced that? I have. It’s this ache inside that won’t go away. You may try to appease this hunger with food or material goods but it doesn’t help. It often makes you feel even worse. 

Most of us eat everyday. But do we have a regular diet of spiritual food? Jesus says in Mathew 4:4b Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 

 In January 2016 I was struggling. We had been back in Canada, the land flowing with milk and honey, for six months, but spiritually I was drying up. While in Haiti I had a regular devotional time with God, but in Canada, very quickly distractions began to infiltrate my life and my time alone with God began to slip. I spent less and less time in His Word and was unknowingly becoming more and more malnourished. 

Then one day, God directed me to a book that challenged me to once again renew my daily devotional time with Him. Although very sleep derived due to a colicky baby, I obeyed and very quickly my life began to change. The daily sitting at God’s feet and eating of His Word, and listening to His directions revived me. As days went by, instead of sighing as my phone alarm buzzed at 6:00 a.m. I was excited to get up and spend more time alone in God’s presence. 

The more time I spent with God, the more He revealed Himself to me and the more I loved Him. Day after day I carefully read through the book of Psalms and then felt God directing me to some less well-known books like Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Hosea. After I finished those I went on to study Ephesians, Acts and 1 & 2 Thessalonians. I then felt God directing me to Isaiah. To be honest I kind of looked up against it, as Isaiah is a long book and I thought it would be obscure and hard to understand. Was I ever wrong! The book of Isaiah is an absolutely incredible, beautiful book revealing a lot about who God is, and what He says, and how He deals with His people. It also has incredible revelation of Jesus, which makes it really hard for me to understand how the Jews could read that book today and still deny that Jesus is the Messiah. 

Some of the verses I wrote down in my notebook this morning were these: 

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Isaiah 54:10 

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. Isaiah 54:11-12 

And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. Isaiah 54:13 

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. Isaiah 54:17 

That’s just a few of the verses I was reading and mediating on today. Sometimes I feel like I should just copy the whole book into my notebook since there are so many beautiful, powerful passages! I’ve been study/reading/meditating on the book of Isaiah for three months now and I’m still not done. 

So I urge you dear friends, maybe you are struggling, sick, hungry, not knowing that you are suffering from spiritual malnutrition. Drink the milk of God’s Word, then as you grow stronger, eat the solid food, let God teach you and grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. 2 Peter 3:18 

 “Thy testimonies evermore shall be 

The perfect source of all my inspiration.” 

Psalter 428:7