I think of toddlers when they are tired and hungry in the flesh. They don’t know they are tired and hungry much of the time, they just have less patience and willpower and peace. Now that I think about the toddlers, it is also true for me. Take sugar out of my diet, and somehow, I feel hungry all the time. When I only eat heathy food, I feel hungry more often. What is it about sugar that distracts me? Studies now show that sugar is addictive, as if we needed scientific proof. It keeps us wanting more, and in the West, we always have more, sugar is cheap, and easy to access satisfying us just enough and keeping us hooked, and sugar is legal! When I removed sugar from my diet, it was so hard for like 2 weeks or maybe a month, but then there is light at the end of the tunnel. I started to feel more energy, healthier, excess weight starts to fall off, and I desired sugar less, but I did stay hungry. Sugar helps us forget that we need true nourishment. (I’m aware of how annoying this paragraph is)
In the Kingdom realm, the sugar rule applies as well. In the West, we overdo it on the “sugar” What is sugar in the spiritual realm? For many it could be actual sugar still, but for others it could be work, exercise, shopping, television shows, video games, social media, relationships with people, drugs, alcohol, or even hiding behind the wrong identity.
In the immediate, it feels good and right, and helps us to feel complete and forget that we are hungry for true nourishment. Just like sugar, these things blind us, so that we are unaware of our true need for spiritual nourishment. Many of us are poor in spirit, we are starving, only eating the crumbs fed to us on Sunday morning, we never learned how to nourish ourselves. A true spiritual leader is like a good parent. Introducing good food and how to find it and how to prepare it, how to receive it. But we fill ourselves with “sugar” our distractions, and don’t want to know how to discipline ourselves. Our sugar vice is easy to access, cheap to acquire, and filling us up with non-nourishing things. A good parent introduces a healthy balanced lifestyle so the child can grow in stature and discipline. A good spiritual leader will introduce a lifestyle of sitting with the poor, prayer, and listening meditation, studying scripture, fasting, generosity, all of this allows us to discover our true identity in Christ--as royalty, with the ability to go before the King, our Creator and be filled with love to overflowing. We learn the up-side-down ways of Jesus and follow him.
Just like we want to have our perfect body and health without the work of a healthy lifestyle, so we want to “follow” Jesus while continuing in our selfish ways. A way exists to enjoy sugar in a healthy way, and so it is possible to enjoy the Western lifestyle in a healthy way, but it will take discipline to discover how. It takes sacrifice, and work, and time and probably some time in the wilderness. Jesus had to go to the wilderness, Nebuchadnezzar had to do it, the Israelites needed the wilderness. American society is not keen on spending time in the wilderness.
I want to believe that I can still have cake and ice cream every day and get the body I want. Equally, I want Jesus’ love and power to shine through me, while watching 2 hours of TV every day in my huge house, and up to date wardrobe and two luxury vacations a year.
We need to take a hard look at how we nourish ourselves and decide if it’s okay, but choosing to nourish ourselves spiritually, like collecting mana that fell from heaven, will take work and discipline before it nourishes us. We have to find to source of life, before we can live abundantly. We need to seek the face of God like we are hungry.
Consider your cravings. I would say most people, when stressed, crave sugary or salty things, alcohol, long runs; whatever it is you go to. Consider if it is a necessary thing for your body. If you went the rest of your life without it (even if it sounds stressful) you would survive. How interesting that we crave such things.
We don’t crave protein, calcium or vitamins. We might crave something that contains those things, but when you think about that craving, is it more the saltiness or sweetness that you think of?
I have one enthusiastic sister-in-law, who is very intentional about a healthy lifestyle, that did something I will never forget. We were standing in our mom’s kitchen for some holiday gathering, and she reached for a spinach leaf right out of a bag of spinach. That girl looked me in the eye, and said, “I know this might sound crazy, but one of my favorite things to do is roll up a leaf of raw spinach and just sink my teeth into it. As she slowly bit into that rolled up piece of spinach, she closed her eyes and sighed. Just having her little moment with a spinach leaf.
That sealed the deal for me, I’m going to change my brain to do that too, Leaves are going to be my comfort now, forget chocolate and icecream. I learned that discipline can change the way we think. Every time I went to chocolate, I reminded myself that it really is not helping me in my journey in life. Nope, whatever comfort I get from chocolate is a big lie. (I know that science can combat that idea, but the way I was inhaling it, was not good for me)
Our flesh is not craving spiritual connection on a level that most people are living. Our soul is craving and needing spiritual connection, but somehow our souls have taken a step back from our flesh and ignore it’s needs. People can live for a lifetime without giving the soul what it needs. But we do feel the loss. We feel something is missing.
Lies that Support our Good Economy
Our culture needs us to continue to consume at a high rate. We are all the Rich Young Ruler that Jesus spoke of. My friend gets irritated at my incessant insistence that we should all sell everything and serve and love the poor. That might be the only way to truly find His Glory. To learn how to live and move and have our being in Him. We have been invited but can we go in? My friend says, “What would happen if we all give everything away and move to be near the poor.?” Indeed, what would happen? Oh, how I long for that day.
Let us contemplate the lie that we can somehow buy happiness. When said outright in so many words, it sounds absurd. But if we take a look at how we live our lives, it might seem like we are attempting to buy happiness.
The upside down ways of the Kingdom would indicate that living into an altruistic lifestyle would be the most nourishing life. Even scientific studies are suggesting that humans behave altruistically because it is emotionally rewarding. Altruism is not only caring for and giving to others. “It is acting to help someone else at some cost to oneself” (psychologytoday.com) Altruism feeds our souls and connect us with the Father in his Kingdom.