Good Nutrition

Good Nutrition            

               Happy, happy spring!  How delightful to welcome spring—especially this year.  The advent of spring brings Easter, preceded by Lent.

For many of us the Gospel reading on the first Sunday of each Lent is Satan’s tempting Jesus in the desert with power, pleasure and wealth.

            When Satan came to Jesus, Jesus hadn’t eaten for 40 days.  Surely, he was hungry, but when Satan said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread,” Jesus answered, “Man [or woman] does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:3-4, New American).

            We can analyze Jesus’ response in many ways, and, through the years, I’m sure it has been, but today let’s look at it in a couple of ways.

            God created us as triune persons—physical, mental and spiritual.  To be healthy, we need to care for all aspects of our person.  To keep the physical me healthy, I need to provide myself with more than bread (even though, I love bread), just as Jesus said.  Good nutrition is a complex process, and I’m not a nutritionist, but I suspect all of us who struggle with weight management know mega truths about nutrition—the number of servings we should eat daily of protein, dairy, fruits and vegetables, fiber…ad nausea.

            But that verse also reminds me that I need to keep the spiritual side of me healthy.  My body needs more than bread to be healthy, and the whole me needs more than food to be healthy.  I need God; my spirit also needs to be fed. 

            So each year when I hear that verse read, one of my first thoughts is this:  No, I don’t live on bread alone.  I need God’s love to live.

            So maybe when I am tempted to overeat, I can feed myself differently—with prayer, reading spiritual material, or just sitting quietly with God, soaking up the Holy One’s love.

                                                                                                                                    Sharon Witty

Our Daily Bread

I didn’t use to like bread. Unfortunately that has changed during my lifetime.  Now I love bread. Especially if it has butter generously spread on top…or layered with cheese. Or sweet moist breads like pumpkin or banana or poppy seed or turned into cinnamon rolls… Have I gone on long enough to make you hungry for bread?  

Bread is a staple. If you have bread, you have a meal. Just top it with peanut butter, or jam, or a slice of meat and you have all you need. There are hundreds of kinds of bread, I’m sure, and just as many ways to enjoy eating it.

I remember coming home from school and my mother had freshly baked cinnamon rolls and wonderful crescent rolls hot from the oven. The house smelled wonderful. The moment was heavenly.

Those memories we have and cherish also create a desire to relive that time by eating the same food again. Those foods become our comfort foods. The ones we turn to during emotional crises. The ones we eat yet they don’t satisfy because we are trying to fill an emotional emptiness instead of a physical hunger. Why not follow the suggestion offered in Isaiah?

“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare,” (Isaiah 55:2 NIV).

Those are definitely words to live by. 

Gloria D. Stewart