What are you eating?
One way of naming more about our Old Self is to ponder, “What do I feed myself with?”
What do you consume to try to find fuel for your life, that makes you feel OK in the world (or try to)? Is it your success? Is it your humor or your intelligence? Is it trying to be a really good mom, or spouse, or a nice person, or a gutsy person? Is it trying to be the best in your field, or the most well-liked leader, or make the most money? Or is it feeding off your ‘neighbor’— their approval of you, or their need of you, or trying to measure up to how you perceive them, or feeling better about yourself because at least you are not as ___ as them? We each grow up learning to fill our cup with the things that seem to feed us and we’ve lived many, many stories that have reinforced these things.
I’m going to say something weird, are you ready? Actually Jesus said it—
“Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no Life in you.”
It sounded gross then, and it sounds gross now, and many in his day turned away when He said this. Why would He say something so unsettling? I believe He’s getting at the heart of our question above — what are you eating?
He’s making a bold claim. He’s saying that the fuel for Life comes from Him. And if you want true fuel for your Life, you need to feed off of the resources God offers—The fuel of Himself. If you don’t, you’ll go looking for fuel in misguided places. I believe that’s what He’s saying. We can all guess what happens to a car running on a tank of fake fuel.
He makes this point again when He tells His followers where His fuel come from. He told them, “MY FOOD is to do the will of the One who sent me.” So first, He uses this weird metaphor, telling us to EAT HIM, and then He tells us what HE eats—being connected to God His Father, drawing on His resources, trusting in His love, and doing what He wants Him to do. This is kind of the whole deal— This is what followers of Jesus are learning to do too. Not just on paper, or reflected in a doctrinal statement. But in moment-to-moment, day-to-day life.
Got all that? Now, here’s the simple next step: Stop eating all the other things you’ve thought would feed you. (And don’t you feel it, that these things don’t feed you? That what they offer is fleeting and leaves you with a tummy ache?) And then, ask Him to help you learn how to eat Him instead; How to eat what He eats. This is the easy-peasy work of a lifetime!
