When do we move from milk to solid foods? Is it when we
become a certain age? When we have grown enough to realize there is more that
can nourish us than just milk? There is diversity and life in different foods. There
are so many extravagant and wonderful things to taste once you move from pure
milk to solid foods. And if no one ever introduced you to food, you would not know even be aware of its existence. You would probably be perfectly content with just having milk.
This month, God has
revealed to me the importance of moving forward in my faith–What it means to
leave pure milk and move on to solid food. What would it be like if an infant
continued to drink solely milk as he grew up? Do you think he would have proper
nourishment and reach the potential of who he was created to be? This is
similar to the Christian walk. As a believer in Christ, I have a choice. I can
choose to stay in the infancy stage of Christianity where I let God fill me,
but never pour back out. Or I can surrender every aspect of my life and allow God
to mold me so that I can gain nourishment through “Solid food”. And then I
can pour out to others.
“My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not
concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have
stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned
child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and
forevermore.” Psalm 131
During one of our morning devotionals, my teammate Sarah
read the above psalm and had us meditate on it. For me, I processed through
what the past 9 months away from home has taught me. How being on the race has
burst open the box that I had God in for so long. I know that there is no need
to cry out any longer, because I have moved on to solid foods. I have tasted
the goodness of God and can’t get enough.
In Hebrews 5 it says, “In fact, though by this time you
ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of
God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on
milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching of
righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have
trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
I’ve struggled with this quite a bit and I always find
myself re-learning the elementary truths of God; instead of letting them sink
deep to my core. But now I understand how crucial it is to believe that God is
love and has a character that encompasses all good things. One of the most
crucial elementary truths is that God is love.
And he loves all of us beyond what we can fathom. Once you fully grasp
the idea that God loves you, your life will be transformed and you will be
opened up to a whole new world of God’s character. I think this is what it
means to mature. And I don’t have it all figured out, but I do feel like I have
learned so much this year. It’s amazing to experience the diversity of “food” after being on milk for so long. I pray you reach out an d taste the goodness of God too.
