Hebrews 5:11-14
About this, we have much to say that is hard to explain since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
Being healthy is a lot of work. As I have gotten older, it has become more difficult to live a physically healthy life. More comfortable habits have replaced the time and energy I used to have in eating a balanced diet, exercising, or managing stress. Easy food has often replaced healthier food that takes time to prepare. Sitting seems preferable to walking. Comfort food and drink more enjoyable than it often should be. Distractions to my time and energy constantly call my name…most of them “good” things.
But when we do not take the time to prioritize the important aspects of our physical health the consequences to our behavior are right around the corner. A week immune system means that we are more susceptible to illness, exhaustion takes its toll on our energy and emotions, stress wears on our joints or causes other kinds of maladies, heart attacks sideline us, strokes threaten to take our energy and mobility…we can either make the time for our health, or we can be forced to take the time on our backs.
In addition, our unhealthiness affects those whom we are called to love…including the stewardship of our own lives. We are more irritable, given to impatience, have less energy, and are less prepared for those unexpected or tragic occurrences that are bound to come up in our everyday existence. When we get sick due to our poor health, we expect everyone around us to care for us, feel sorry for us, and cater to our needs. Our health always affects our “families” and friends.
In a similar way, being healthy spiritually also takes discipline. Without it we are, as the writer mentions above, “unskilled in the word of righteousness”. We cannot eat or digest meat, because we do not want to do the work to buy, prepare, cook, and then chew it. Milk is in the fridge, is cold, tasty, and accessible. Easy-peasy.
So we are unprepared and immature once the temptations, distractions or trials of life come our way as if the scriptures do not repeatedly talk of such things. We want to follow the Lord as long as it doesn’t take too much work, sacrifice, or challenge to do it. But where in any area of the created order or human existence does little discipline and work equal helpful and productive results? Why do we think we can be spiritually lazy, and then not suffer the consequences for it in our everyday lives, families, and joy?
When the hard times do come, we are then beset by the familiar phrases: “this isn’t fair”, “I shouldn’t have to suffer”, “why me?”, etc. We drink milk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then expect not to have protein deficiencies and diabetes. We face physical challenges with weak muscles and constant sickness that we can’t ward off and then marvel at the temptations to which we continually succumb. We don’t put on the armor of God or train our bodies, we just live like most other Americans who add certain aspects of spirituality to our lives while we engage in things that will always leave us malnourished and dissatisfied. We lack little discernment in distinguishing between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world because complexity and knowledge scare us. God isn’t our problem, we are our problem.
I Corinthians 3:1-3
And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?
The Lord calls us to life, hope, peace and joy. But it only comes his way through discipline with the Covenant Community of Christ and in our own personal discipline and training toward spiritual maturity. How are you pursuing your spiritual health?
Father Tom
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark A. Noll