You Are What You Eat

My wife and I try to eat sensibly, buying fresh fruit and vegetables and keeping fat and sugar to a minimum. We have tried various diets in the past, but they didn't seem to produce the promised results and in any case we found that the rigid regime began to take over our lives.

Others choose to take it more seriously and often quote the phrase, "You are what you eat!" I looked it up and found it originated in the 1800's or earlier in Europe. The German, "Der Mensch ist, was er ißt."translates into English as 'man is what he eats'. Much later in the 1960's, it was adopted by the champions of healthy eating and is currently the title of a popular TV dieting series.

Sometimes food is taken much further. We watched a TV programme the other evening about families who were following an extreme raw food diet, omitting all meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, wheat and flour and certain fruits. The food preparation gave us the impression of being a laboratory, rather than a kitchen. They looked physically healthy, but we were given the impression that it had become the top priority in their lives. A filmed teaching session was shown, that appeared very much like an evangelical Christian service of praise and worship.

It never ceases to amaze me how we will often go to extraordinary lengths to preserve our physical health, but give scant attention to our spiritual lives. Jesus came to give us new life, free and everlasting! We need to eat and drink, but only He can satisfy the spiritual hunger. Furthermore, he did not separate out the physical from the spiritual.

If we feed regularly upon and inwardly digest His Word and drink in His loving presence, we have the potential for an abundant life, which has a positive effect upon our whole being, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

"Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4 New International Version

"Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35 New International Version