Feast On This

Nearly two years ago, while reading the book "Everybody's Normal Till You Get To Know Them" by John Ortberg, the Lord blessed me beyond measure with an experience that I would now like to share with you. My hope is that you too will experience the fullness of His nature . . .

I must begin by telling you that I was stopped dead in my tracks as I read this statement in the book . . .

• "God could no more forget about you than a nursing mother could forget about her baby."

As statements come and go that one could very easily be glossed over. But if you've ever been a nursing mother you can painfully read between the lines and understand fully what is being said.

Let me try to explain . . .

I breastfed both of my children. My initial efforts involved my son, my firstborn. Although I was challenged at the onset of this new experience, over time the Lord blessed me with an abundance of milk and my son with an abundant appetite. I grew to love the very idea that I was his source of nourishment.

When I read the statement that is quoted above, my mind rushed back to the night, 28 years earlier, to the first 3:00 a.m. feeding that my son slept through. I woke up but he didn't. He was content and satisfied so he had no reason to wake up. I, on the other hand, was literally bursting at the seams! My body was so anxious to provide nourishment that I woke up to a yearning within me to release this source of life sustaining food. My body ached for the chance to feed him.

And as the statement in the book suggests - that is the same degree to which God thinks of us and wants to nourish us. He aches to be our source of refreshment, our source of strength and growth and life itself!!! Think about it . . . God Himself is relieved and satisfied when we come to Him to feast . . . when we come to Him for nourishment.

I was in pain when my son didn't seek nourishment from me and God is equally pained when we don't seek Him. Eventually I was relieved when the very nature of motherhood was fulfilled within me - and God's nature is equally fulfilled as we feast on Him.

And to think that all these years later He used the remembrance of the wee hours of that night to bring me insight into His heart. A place of new understanding and intimacy. I praise Him for holding me together so many years earlier when I wanted to toss aside the whole breastfeeding thing. How incredible it is that He could see that a missed 3:00 a.m. feeding would have such an important impact on my spiritual growth and connection with Him.

And now, a Word of advice from the Apostle Peter . . . "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
1 Peter 2:2
Amen and Amen
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