"Too Busy" to Eat

Aren’t family picnics the best? It was the day before one of our children’s birthdays. One thing he wanted for his birthday was to go to the park not far from our house. Since the weather forecast on his actual “day” called for thunderstorms, we took advantage of the gorgeous evening before!

Packing up fried chicken and fruit – along with iced tea, cookies, and whatever else we thought we needed we headed off to the park. It was so relaxing and such fun – just to be together. Soon everyone knew the food was ready – “come and get it!” Someone asked God to bless it, and we “dug in.”

All except for one that it. My youngest son was just “too busy” to come and eat! After all, he was learning to skateboard, and he had to play on the playground, and then there was football with Dad, ball toss with his brother, Frisbee with mom, and baseball with his brothers . . . what could be more important than that? Certainly not food!

All too soon, the sun dipped behind the mountains, and the evening had to come to a close. We loaded everything back into the van and headed home. We had gone very far at all until a little voice piped up and said, “I’m hungry!” All of those fun, and legitimate things he found so important at the time hadn’t done one thing to fill his need of food! Sure, they had kept him from thinking about it for awhile, but at the end of the day they couldn’t substitute or satisfy his hunger.

Makes me stop and think of soul hunger. The inner need, the emptiness within a person can only be filled through an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the Bread of Life, the Water we thirst for! When we fill ourselves on “play things” this world has to offer, or get too busy – even with legitimate things to stop and feed on Him and His Word and the end of the day we find ourselves looking around saying, “I’m hungry!”

See, He is what makes us complete! Nothing else can substitute or suffice. The joy of knowing Him takes time, but its time spent that holds eternal value. It doesn’t get any better than that! Today – let’s take time to be Holy – and time to eat healthy – in the Presence, of the essence, of the Bread of Life!

Take it With You

“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 635)