Feeding our spirit

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 2:2-3)

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)

Why spiritual milk? The milk Paul and Peter refer to is obviously now cow's milk, sold by the gallon in the grocery store or milked from the nearest animal. No, the milk they refer to is the milk given to infants, the milk which comes from the breast of a mother.

A nursing child can receive full sustenance from their mother's milk. It is the essence of all that which they need to thrive. A mother's milk helps an infant grow into a healthy child. In our spiritual infancy, we need spiritual milk. This can provide all we need to experience soul growth.

But, like a mother's milk, spiritual milk cannot sustain us forever. Eventually, we have to move onto heartier meals. Solid foods, complex combinations which both provide for our increasing physical needs and provide variety and delight for our increasing mental sophistication. Moving from spiritual milk to spiritual solids requires letting go of the easy answers and the assumption that we understand what's going on.

Graduating from milk to solids is not easy; Paul makes that clear. Some foods taste bad and some foods are bad for you. Learning to separate the good from the bad is difficult, and we will often make mistakes. It is much easier to stick with the comfort of milk. Yet, without pushing ourselves to desire spiritual food, we will never experience the true richness God has to offer us.

But we must also avoid trying to push ourselves too quickly. Like an infant at his mother's breast, in our spiritual infancy, we are not ready for solid foods. We need to grow slowly and carefully, but we do have to grow.