Nourishing Our Souls

Yesterday I talked about our God who wants to be in relationship with us.  I thought of my response during a 2010 workshop at Synod Assembly.  I can't exactly remember what prompt the moderator gave us, but I was struck by this image of God always inviting me to lunch or dinner, and me checking my calendar and seeing date after date would not work.

During our discussion of what we wrote, I said, "I'm afraid God will quit issuing lunch invitations."  Then I burst into tears.

The Good News, of course, is that God will not stop issuing invitations.  But my time-starved existence could well be damaging me in other ways.

I need to think of time in the same way that I approach food and nutritional choices. I've often thought that the modern approach to dieting is all wrong. We focus on permitted foods and forbidden ones, much the way that some churches focus on permitted behaviors and ones that are banned. But what we should be doing is considering the nutritive content of everything that goes into our mouths. Some foods,like spinach, carrots, broccoli, oatmeal, V8 juice, are packed with nutrients and well worth the calories. Some foods are empty of nutritive value, and a waste of calories--and some are downright harmful. Every time we eat or drink, we have an opportunity to promote health and healing--or to undercut it.

Likewise, the way we live our lives moves us closer to God or further away.  If we looked at all our activities and evaluated them about how they impacted our relationship with God, what choices would we make? If we thought of every action in terms of what it contributes to creating a world that is more merciful, more kind, more like God, how would we live each day?