Summer News

"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, to finish his work." – John 4:34

What drives us? What drives me? It is an uncomfortably introspective question that can reveal much. Nothing can start one thinking about this as quickly as food, or the lack thereof. In training for a hike I just completed this summer, I had a goal to loose 8 pounds. There was no point in drilling holes in the handle of my toothbrush to lighten my load by a quarter ounce when I could cut back on my feed and loose 8 pounds I did not need to drag up and down the mountain. Passing up the seconds on all the good home cooking I regularly see was a challenge. But that, plus regular exercise, put me well within accomplishing that goal by the time I left to go west. It was a matter of being driven by a dream of hiking into thinner air unencumbered by the unnecessary.

Seven days of carrying one’s provisions kept all of us pared back to the essentials. It was interesting to hear grown men talking about the content labels of everything from olive oil to candy bars in determining the nutritive and caloric content. We looked for the biggest bang for the least weight. One of us rejoiced in eating a giant Snickers bar for lunch everyday having found it contained over 500 calories. Food became an obsession for there was seemingly never enough of it, especially for our younger set. Bartering broke out on the fourth day into the hike. Fishing took on special significance. I never felt like I was going hungry but still lost an additional five pounds for the week in spite of some trail ending splurges at a pizza shop.

But there was sufficient time and opportunity to contemplate the truth of “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word the proceeds from the mouth of God.” How many of our waking moments are preoccupied by what we eat or desire to eat? Moses went up into the mountain to obtain the ten commandments and “neither did eat bread nor drink water” for forty days and nights. Elijah was given a couple of meals by an angelic messenger and “went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.” These were men on a mission who were sustained by the Lord in miraculous fashion, no doubt. Still, there was probably some discomfort, but they were much more consumed by their heavenly pursuit than by their desire to sit at a sumptuous table and satiate their bodily desires. They were driven by heavenly causes over and above their personal peace and comfort.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” Isaiah cried out to those who spend their money for that which is not bread. “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Proverbs reminds us that wisdom beckons to the simple. “Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish, and live.” Life is not in the bread of this world but in the heavenly bread that comes down from heaven.

I was willing to forsake much fine eating this summer to see the tops of mountains, glory in the alpine meadows of the upper Rockies, catch trout in high lakes, see the wildlife of remote woodlands, and climb heights for panoramic vistas. It was well worth it. May I be so willing to forsake the pleasures of this world, the dainty meats of the evil one, and the ease of the wide and broad path for the sake of gaining the heavenly kingdom and doing the will of my Father in heaven. May we all be so driven to do the will of Him who sent our Savior that we do not even notice those momentary sacrifices that impinge upon our personal peace and affluence. To him who does, “bread shall be given; his waters shall be sure (Isa. 33:16).”