Are you Feasting?

Are you feasting spiritually? Are you spiritually well-fed, healthy, full, sated, and satisfied? Are you well-fed on God's word, prayer, obedience, service, worship, fellowship - and the rest? Look at the picture of that spectacular feast - is that how you picture the food you give yourself spiritually? This isn't necessarily any easier than figuring out how to feed our physical bodies

Go to a book store and you'll find rows and rows of books on the subject. Hundreds of blogs on the web - whole TV programs and even channels - and why not - we derive so much pleasure from a great meal - our favorite foods prepared just so ...

... and if you've ever had a great retreat experience, week of camp; or sat through a fantastic sermon, had an amazing conversation with a friend, discipler or teacher - then you know ... You know that a spiritual feast is even more life-giving.

What do we all do after we have a meal like the one on the right? That's right - we go to sleep. Not a bad way to spend a holiday - but there it is. What do we do after a spiritual feast though? We connect with God - and others - we journal - we pray and express deep gratitude to God for pouring such rich blessings on us. We're lit up - fired up - energized - inspired ... we half expect ourselves to glow and levitate because we sense ourselves in that close of a proximity to God. We can practically feel ourselves glowing from the time we spent with him.

The rewards of learning to do so well are at least as fulfilling - having a superbly nourished and fueled soul could literally change the world for those around you.

As all the familiar routines of fall kick back in over the coming days and weeks - you're in an ideal season to incorporate a habit of feasting on God's word daily and making the daily care and feeding of your soul a preiminent treat you give yourself. You can hardly imagine what your world would look like - what God can reveal to you in your classes, how He can use you at your job, what insights He can infuse you with while interacting with your neighbors - or how much more effectively you can love your family and friends - when you clear out the soul clutter than creeps up on us every day. Whether we have questions, doubts, desires or hopes - the peace, love, joy and hope God promises can get swamped as the rigor of our daily lives challenges our commitments. Bringing these things to God every day - and asking for His wisdom and perspective lets us become attentive students and unburden our souls. Staying in prayerful conversation with Him throughout the day allows us to continually recalibrate and stay shifted into a position of giving, encouraging, building and investing in others. The more we do this - the more the battles we long to win in our personal lives fade away under God's continous and loving presence - and the battles we wage are His - for others - and we move from working to fix or that in our own lives - to becoming His Life Giving agents in the lives of those we care for. We move from wading through an environment filled with the fog of being me-driven - to not only having a clear conscience - but having our own souls healed and well enough to be able to look to standing with others.

If you want to build a daily habit of walking with God - here are some ways to start:
Commit to feeding your dog ... this is based on a Native American legend of a grandfather telling his grandson that we all have "two dogs in us - a black dog that represents all that's evil, dark and sinister in the world - and a white dog that represents everything that's good, right and excellent in the world. These two dogs are constantly at war with one another." The boy asks his grandfather "which one will win?" and the grandfather answers "The one you feed" If you want to have a victorious, strong soul that's able to generously give to and love others profoundly - you must feed your soul. This is a very simple place to start - but it works:
STARTING OUT:
Commit to 15 minutes a day - 5 minutes of Bible reading, 5 minutes of prayer - and 5 minutes of journaling. Here are some questions to jump start your journaling:
1. What is God teaching me through His word?
2. How is God answering my prayers?
3. What's happening with spiritual warfare? (aka: how am I and/or others around me being tempted?)
4. Who does God want me to encourage with what He's doing?

Look for another post on this topic in the next week - it won't take long for our quality spiritual feeding to start really building spiritual muscle - which makes us so hungry for even more quality spiritual feeding. Until then - Bon' Appetit'!