Pastor's Notes
February 2012
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Having a toddler in the house is like having a
fast-forward illustration of God’s call toward Christian maturity. From watching them learn to crawl and then
walk to watching them struggle with their first sounds and words there’s this
kind of constant reminder of God’s desires for our growth. But the aspect I’m most aware of these days is
their journey with food.
I think of food in particular because of our newly begun 4-month long series in the Book of Hebrews, where one of our primary goals is engaging both the Bible and our relationship with God (and each other) at that deeper level that the author highlights so poignantly in Hebrews 5:11-14, where he uses the following food analogy:
“11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 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! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
That analogy and journey, of course, are very much on display in the life of my toddler. As we all did, he started on a strict liquid diet and as he’s grown, he has slowly increased his capacity to take in solid foods. Mind you, he ingests solid food in small bites and in limited quantities, and he still wants milk before bed, so it’s not like he’s ready for a big fat steak (much less the knife it would take to cut it up), but I imagine that I’m pretty typical in my sincere hope as his father that one day I’ll be able to take him to a steak house and relish together the pleasure of a perfectly cooked filet.
I also imagine that both God and the author of Hebrews have a juicy steak in mind when they talk about “solid food”. It might not be that exactly, but it’s something like that in the spiritual realm. Whatever the spiritual maturity equivalent of a perfectly cooked juicy steak looks like, that’s what God wants from each and every one of us, and the problem is that unlike my toddler (who grows without really having to try right now), those of us who have grown into our adult physical bodies sometimes equate our bigness with maturity. Sometimes we think that just because we’re able to eat real steaks that our spiritual consumption has matched pace. But for some (many?) of us, it’s not true, and spiritually speaking, we need to do what my toddler does: take in that solid spiritual food in little bits.
To that end, I’m going to try and “cut the steak into little bites” for us during this series, but just like I have hopes for my toddler, I have hopes for this church, and my dream is this: that one day we will be a congregation full of juicy-spiritual-steak eaters. And by the way, just like in my role as a father to my toddler: I’m on the journey too!
I think of food in particular because of our newly begun 4-month long series in the Book of Hebrews, where one of our primary goals is engaging both the Bible and our relationship with God (and each other) at that deeper level that the author highlights so poignantly in Hebrews 5:11-14, where he uses the following food analogy:
“11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 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! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
That analogy and journey, of course, are very much on display in the life of my toddler. As we all did, he started on a strict liquid diet and as he’s grown, he has slowly increased his capacity to take in solid foods. Mind you, he ingests solid food in small bites and in limited quantities, and he still wants milk before bed, so it’s not like he’s ready for a big fat steak (much less the knife it would take to cut it up), but I imagine that I’m pretty typical in my sincere hope as his father that one day I’ll be able to take him to a steak house and relish together the pleasure of a perfectly cooked filet.
I also imagine that both God and the author of Hebrews have a juicy steak in mind when they talk about “solid food”. It might not be that exactly, but it’s something like that in the spiritual realm. Whatever the spiritual maturity equivalent of a perfectly cooked juicy steak looks like, that’s what God wants from each and every one of us, and the problem is that unlike my toddler (who grows without really having to try right now), those of us who have grown into our adult physical bodies sometimes equate our bigness with maturity. Sometimes we think that just because we’re able to eat real steaks that our spiritual consumption has matched pace. But for some (many?) of us, it’s not true, and spiritually speaking, we need to do what my toddler does: take in that solid spiritual food in little bits.
To that end, I’m going to try and “cut the steak into little bites” for us during this series, but just like I have hopes for my toddler, I have hopes for this church, and my dream is this: that one day we will be a congregation full of juicy-spiritual-steak eaters. And by the way, just like in my role as a father to my toddler: I’m on the journey too!
