#haveyoueatentoday?

Author: Jenni Newbanks

This past Friday, the women’s group at Blacksmith Priory were studying Romans, Chapter 7 when an amazing topic began to be discussed. To give you a little background on the study, Paul was writing about his internal battle with sin. This lead to the telling of “the Tale of the Two Dogs.” The tale goes like this:

A wise man said he had two dogs inside of him. One of the dogs is evil and mean and the other dog is kind and good. The evil dog fights the good dog relentlessly and when someone asked the man which dog wins, after quiet reflection the man answered, “The dog I feed the most.”

This retelling of an ancient Native American tale brought about a discussion that just exploded into something amazing. I talked about my personal struggles with “feeding the good dog” daily and asked my sisters in Christ to hold me accountable.

One of our regular members, Kelli McClellan, brought such a wise thought to the table. She said, “When I wake up and eat breakfast, I end up eating lunch and dinner throughout the day. When I wake up and skip breakfast, I could go all day without eating, without realizing how hungry I am and by the end of the day I am starving and will be satisfied with anything that does not take much work to prepare.”

This is how our metabolisms work. If you eat breakfast, it jump starts your metabolism for the day. This can also be applied to our “spiritual metabolism.” If you wake up every morning with prayer and the Word, you reach out to God more throughout the day.

Now let’s take this a step further, when you are choosing a church, you go to get “fed,” right? Some may find this as a foreign concept but this is ultimately what we are looking for, a huge “Sunday meal” to feed our spirits and set us up for the week ahead. A big problem in the church today is that many believers think they only have to “eat” on Sundays. Think about how you would feel if you were to apply that in a physical sense. That would be crazy if we only ate on Sundays, right!? I cannot stress enough how important it is to feed yourself spiritually everyday. Think of your spirit as one that feeds solely on the Word of God.

Imagine how empty and frail your spirit would become by Tuesday or Wednesday. Do you think your spirit would have the strength to fight , as Paul describes, “another law waging war against law of my mind.” (Romans 7:23) If we took our spiritual health as serious as our physical health we would feed ourselves daily, would we not?

And let’s think about the food you will feed your spirit. Will you be satisfied with a daily devotional written by a man that makes you feel good every morning? I would call this a “simple carb” for your spiritual diet. Simple carbs burn up quickly leaving the body just as quickly as it entered. What I will tell you is the Word serves up MEAT– Something complex enough to get you through to your next meal.

So it is simple. As members of the body of Christ, we are to hold one another accountable even for our daily feeding. Remind one another by asking one simple question. “Have you eaten today?”

Well…have you?

Why Ideological Terror Attacks Will Continue to Rise

By now, you have likely had your fill of commentary on the attack on French satirists that have sparked outrage and mourning across the globe.  Chalk it up as one more ideological act of violence.  One worldview lashing out in savage violence that both appalls and enrages any civilized person.  “How does this happen?  We live in the 21st century!  This simply cannot go on!  It must stop!  What has happened to the world we live in?!”  All of these and more are repeated in response to every occurrence of violence around the world–each one seemingly more savage than the last.  The worst news of it all is this:  Not only will this pattern of violence continue, but the continuation of these violent terror-tantrums are actually the only rational outcome of a situation that was created more than a century ago with the rise of relativism and subjective reasoning.

The consensus among child-psychologists today is that temper tantrums in children begin when a child experiences frustration over not getting what they want, and then not being able to communicate properly about the matter.  As I am sure you can imagine, if every 14 month old could communicate to his or her guardian that they simply did not require a nap today due to the fact that they slept in late that morning and planned on turning in early that night, there would be no need to violently protest the matter in what we commonly know as a temper tantrum.  A responsible parent, when confronted with a temper tantrum, should use the opportunity to help the child communicate without hurling objects and screaming at the top of its lungs.  The opportunity and ability to communicate effectively tends to cease these temper tantrums and results in what we know as “growing out of it.”  I tell you that it is the same effect being witnessed here in the world today.  Terror attacks are a result of the built up anger and frustration with the inability to discuss topics of important or deeply emotional impact to the group or individual committing these acts of violence.  And I squarely blame proponents of Postmodern philosophy for setting the stage and then fanning the flame for this increasing trend of violence by these ideological groups.