Mom was Right!

Proverbs 27:7 “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”

Remember when you were a kid and it was close to dinner time? You were hungry. You wanted something to eat and, of course, candies and other sweets seemed like a great idea. Then somehow mom figured out what you were doing and she yelled: “Don’t eat that! You’ll ruin your appetite!”

Of course she was right, but not only was she right, she was teaching us a spiritual truth as well.

We have to be careful what we fill our spiritual bellies with, or we’ll ruin our appetite for God’s truth. If we’re filling ourselves up with godless entertainments on television and on the Internet, not only are we filling our hearts and minds with things that are bad, we’re also robbing God of His time with us because we’re filling our time with things that are unimportant.

My parents were POW’s during World War II under the Japanese. Dad was thirteen and mom was six or seven when the Japanese invaded the then Dutch colony of Indonesia. At first, the Dutch were under strict martial law, but that eventually led to a miserable existence in concentration camps. Food was scarce. One lesson my mom learned and often repeated to us was that you’ll eat anything if you’re hungry enough.

And when she said anything she meant rats, mice, snakes – even bugs. In order to survive, she and her family ate whatever they could find that was remotely edible. There were some meals mom said that her parents never told her what she was eating. She just had to trust them that it would keep her alive.

We have to be that hungry for God’s word. Why? Because there are some things God has to feed us spiritually that we might not want if our spiritual appetite is ruined. And there are some things He’s going to need to feed us that we’re just going to have to trust Him as necessary for our survival.