In My Mouth

One of the downsides to entering adulthood is that you have to start taking responsibility. Now I have to pay the bills, wake up on my own, and fix my own meals. After being burdened with the simplest chores of daily living, I don’t believe adulthood is all it’s cracked up to be. Who knew that toilet paper actually cost money?

This was an especially prevalent truth when Stephanie would leave for a weekend to spend with her mom. Only a few hours after her departure, my stomach notified me of the reality: I had to fix my own meals. But I was so used to Stephanie cooking, that I felt inept in the kitchen. And the sad truth is, that I would either go without food, or end up consuming the ever-nutritious peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I tend to wonder if too many of us are so accustomed to "being served" our spiritual meals, that we don't know our way around the sacred kitchen of God’s Word. And when we're left to our own abilities, we either go hungry or attempt to satisfy our appetite on a single meal a week. Too many adult Christians depend on the church to bring a plate of prepared food, and thus remain infants in their spiritual walk. There’s nothing wrong with approaching church with a ferocious appetite, but too many “leave their fork at home and show up with their bib.”1

Speaking of remaining in the infant stages, not too long ago Stephanie and I ran across a rather interesting interview with a woman in England who was still breastfeeding her children, now five and eight. I’m sure there are those who might see this as perfectly acceptable. I find it disturbing. Once they are old enough to describe the flavor (“It tastes like melons,” said in a little girl’s British accent) it’s time to move onto more mature meals.

The problem with the church today is that “there are too many five, ten, twenty year old Christians still trying to latch on the nipple.”1

We have become lazy in our consumption, lacking the motivation to move onto solid foods. We’ve become the very Christians that Paul was writing to in Hebrews when he said “by this time you ought to be teachers, [but] 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 about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”2

What has happened to our Christian faith? We’re so easily amazed at Jewish children who have memorized whole sections of scripture, if not the entire Old Testament. Yet we forget that we are commanded to do the same.

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.”3

Too take it even further, if you look at the Hebrew word for “meditate,” which is “Hagah,” there is a very clear picture of how we should be studying God’s Word. To meditate means to “think deeply or carefully about,” but “HAGAH” means “to growl” like a lion after a fresh kill. A lion doesn’t think about it’s food, it becomes lost in its feasting.

I’m humorously reminded of watching my grandmother devour fried chicken: sucking every bone bare, engrossed in savoring every bite and making sure not a scrap of meat goes to waste.

Yet how often do we labor over every word in our Bible with a ravenous appetite?

I conclude that God did not intend for us to casually grab a sacked lunch on Sundays, expecting it to last all week. To mature we must gnaw on every passage until we’ve exhausted it of nutrients. We must become lost in our feasting, in every delightful spoonful that we place in our mouth. We must toss out our bottles, and work to prepare ourselves some solid food.


1. Perry Noble, pastor at Newspring Church, SC, series: “No Perfect People Allowed.”
2. Hebrews 5:12-14
3. Joshua 1:8