Me and My Fish Pond

Back in April of 2004, I began a sabbatical leave that was graciously given to me by my church. The previous year proved to be a difficult one for me for a number of reasons. High on the list was the death of both of my parents a mere six weeks apart. I needed some time "off" to renew and re-energize my spiritual batteries.

One of the first things I did while on sabbatical was to put in a small garden pond adjacent to our front porch. I had done this in the back yard of our previous house, and really wanted to do the same at our current house. I thoroughly enjoy sitting by the pond, listening to the water fall from the barrel into the pond and watching the gold fish lazily swim about. I also enjoy feeding my gold fish. For three years now I have been feeding them twice a day. Instead of the more expensive fish food, I feed them oatmeal. It's a lot cheaper and my fish are growing and healthy! And they LOVE it! (I think I would grow tired of a twice-a-day diet of only oatmeal - but then again, I am not a gold fish!)

Now suppose for whatever reason, I stopped feeding my fish. All of a sudden, their food supply would be greatly diminished. And if I continued to not feed them for a long period of time, my guess is that soon some would start to die (or at the very least stop growing and become sickly). Gold fish, like any creature, must eat in order to survive - and grow.

Guess what? We are no different from gold fish. We must eat if we want to maintain healthy bodies (do I need to remind you that we must eat HEALTHY!). What is true of our bodies is also true of our souls. If we want to grow and maintain a healthy soul - we must feed our souls. And the food that God provides for our souls is HIS WORD! So if we want to grow in our journey's of grace - then we must be REGULARLY interacting with the Bible. But, regrettably this is not the experience of many Christians today. Survey after survey shows that biblical illiteracy is up over a generation ago ... in some cases dramatically so. God's people just don't know God's Word as they should! The result? A floundering Church, dysfunctional families, personal sin and addictions that "cannot" be broken.

My friends, if the only regular interaction you have with God's Word is on Sunday's at church - that is NOT enough. What would happen if you only ate dinner on Sunday? Let's all purpose together to get into God's Word in a more consistent manner. That's the path toward spiritual growth and health!

Thanks for listening,

pj