APPETITE

and the beauty of acquired taste

There is a simple idea that the more you eat, the hungrier you’ll come to be in the future. Our body will bend to our will. I used to eat a very small breakfast everyday until I decided to try and eat a large breakfast everyday. Early on into my breakfast journey, I was struggling to eat what was on my plate simply because I wasn’t hungry for it. My body was used to eating 300 calories of cereal and milk instead of 800 calories of eggs, peanut butter, Kodiak protein waffles, and a protein shake. Now if I were to only eat 300 calories worth of cereal and milk for breakfast, my stomach would be growling for the next 5 hours.

My appetite has changed.

Our spirit, in fact, has an appetite. We ask the Lord to give us our daily bread in the Lord’s prayer not only for our physical food but in this sense as well. Our spirit needs to be nourished. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”¹ As we end the season of Lent today, it’s a perfect time to look at our spiritual appetite.

Are you hungry?

The season of Lent is recognized because of the 40 day fast that Jesus underwent right before he started His ministry. Its purpose is for us to focus more-so on the spiritual food that we need, rather than the fleshly food that our body needs. It’s great for us, but one might question why Jesus did this, with Him being God and all. Jesus fasted simply to build up His spirit before He went to do the most important work for the kingdom of God ever to be done, because He was fully man as well as fully God. It focuses us as men and women on our spiritual appetite and hopefully increases it.

If you and I want to increase our appetite for the Lord and His daily bread for us, we have to start eating more. Our spirit, just like our body, does have a natural hunger. We all, because of the nudging of the Holy Spirit, know in our hearts that something is missing without Jesus in our hearts. If you’re not a believer, there is something in your heart that yearns for God. If you’re telling yourself that there isn’t something missing without Jesus, you’re lying to yourself. You’re lying. We are all simply not complete without our Lord.

Unlike our physical hunger, the founder of our faith is able to help increase our hunger for Him. We simply must ask. If we want more of Jesus, we simply must ask. If we want more faith, we simply must ask. If we want more hunger for the things of God, we simply must ask.

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We realize that having an appetite for the Lord is important. However, without knowing what that entails can be detrimental. I like to relate the spiritual bread of Jesus to a food or drink that requires acquired taste. Coffee is my favorite example. 6 months ago, I was not a coffee drinker. I had tasted coffee before but (no offense to my commodity coffee drinkers) I hated it simply because it wasn’t good coffee. I had tasted and seen that coffee was not for me. I honestly thought it tasted like burnt water. That was until I was introduced to a cup of quality coffee at a quality focused (third wave) shop in Opelika called Side Track. I tasted and saw that quality coffee is good. I was still a little skeptical because I had never enjoyed a cup before then and no, it was not a latte, I’m talking about really tasting the plain coffee. I came to realize that this is what coffee is supposed to taste like. Ever since then, my desire for coffee, and all of the different aspects of it has increased. I believe it’s something that my love for will continue to increase for as well. I have an appetite for coffee because I’m now enjoying the beauty of what it truly is supposed to be like.

The same is with our faith. First I’d like to point out that this analogy is not perfect, whether you believe it or not, we don’t NEED coffee. Praise God for that. However, I’ve found this relation very helpful. Anyway, any of us have seen what church community and a relationship with Jesus is NOT supposed to be like. Condemnation, shame, or maybe shameless hate for people rather than hate for sin. All of these things are like tasting trash coffee (once again, no offense). These things are NOT the gospel and they will NOT feed your hungry spirit! While they may have happened even in a church with good fruit and people being led by the Spirit, if you’ve encountered that kind of faith, let me emphasize this, THAT’S NOT HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE. Even more importantly, that is not God’s character or what a real relationship with Him is like, rather, that brokenness stems from sin. Not God. If that’s been your experience, I’m sorry, you have not tasted and seen that the Lord is good. If anyone truly tastes the Lord, they will see that He is good.

Often times, when we don’t like something, it’s because we want it to taste like something else that we are used to tasting. We can’t enjoy something until we accept its own properties in our mind. However, our brains don’t do that very easily and they actually are better at convincing you that something will taste bad, all of this is to protect you. Why do you think toddlers genuinely cry over vegetables like broccoli, they haven’t seriously tried it? They just think it will taste bad. Our brains need convincing. Only once our spiritual brain is convinced that the Bread of life is good, it accepts its unique nature, just like any food or drink. Following Jesus is unlike anything your soul could ever experience. And it’s honestly unique for every single person. That’s why your process of coming to Christ or seriously finding a faith of your own is so unique. Some people accept the belief easily while others battle it for decades before converting. When one understands what it is like to taste God, however, their appetite for Him begins to increase because of how sweet He is. As I continue to grow in my enjoyment of coffee, it isn’t because I have the same cappuccino everyday. It’s because I get to enjoy coffee in so many different ways. It seems unending. I can have one kind of coffee bean brewed in 12+ ways. And there’s honestly no way that I try every coffee bean in every way because it rotates at my local shop almost weekly! How much more is there to our Father in Heaven, who we can legitimately NEVER get to the end of? If coffee is finite and God is infinite, how much more of Him can I know?! I want to know all of Him! He will never stop shining His light upon us and He will meet us each personally different each day! That is the coolest thing about the Lord, I’m not seeking His face by reading the same verse about Him everyday or singing to same song or praying the same prayer everyday to receive my daily bread; but even if I did, IT WOULD BE ENOUGH. There is no end to the ways of which I will taste and see that the Lord is good. The joy that it gives me to have the privilege of a growing spiritual hunger is beyond measure.

What a blessing it is to fall in love with the needed acquired taste of the Lord Jesus Christ. May we all ask God to increase our zeal and hunger for Him every day and every hour. Amen.

1. Matthew 4:4