Milk ... or Milk?

One of the saddest—and strangest—experiences of my life took place in a remote fishing village in the Mexican state of Veracruz. I was serving as Auntie Trinie’s traveling companion as she ministered in several churches that had sprung up under the auspices of a dear sister in the Lord who had been healed and filled with the Spirit through the magazine Auntie edited and published, Voz en el desierto.

While there, the lady minister relayed to us a request for prayer for a baby. Of course Auntie said yes! Didn’t Jesus Himself have a special love for little ones (Luke 18:15; John 21:15)? We accompanied the pastor to a humble home made of adobe bricks with a thatched roof. Inside we found a languid baby lying in the arms of a solemn-faced mother. Auntie shared a few words, establishing a Biblical basis on which to base our prayer requests before God, and then we prayed.

The prayer ended. For several minutes we sat quietly in holy expectation. Would a touch from God be seen and the baby begin to show signs of a marked recovery? Then Auntie broke the silence. The Lord had given her a vision as we prayed. She had seen the eye of the Lord looking to and fro across the earth, even as it says in 2 Chronicles 16:9, taking in this very situation. Although she didn’t understand the full meaning of the vision, she inferred that God was indeed aware of the baby’s need. On that note we said our goodbyes and left.

Auntie’s vision was the weird part. Wouldn’t such a supernatural visitation mean that there would be a miracle of healing in the offing? Apparently it did not. A few days later the baby died.

As the congregation murmured its commiseration at the news, a chatty lady leaned close to my ear and whispered,”Little wonder the baby died. It's common knowledge that the mother always watered down the evaporated milk she fed the baby. She fed it mostly water.”

My eyes widened at this. God had let the mother know He was seeing what she was doing yet it had not moved her to repentance and to a corresponding action of feeding her baby better. No wonder that senseless death remains high on my list of heartbreaking experiences, along with a deep sense of incredulity that a visitation from God did not spur the lackadaisical mother to turn from her passive abuse.

That little baby died for want of proper nourishment. It sounds awful, and yet all across America, not to mention the world, many of God’s children are withering away spiritually in similar fashion. For want of proper food.

Yes, it’s good to read a Scripture of the day. Yes, it’s good to read a devotional a day (hey, I sometimes read two or three, it’s great to get other perspectives on a passage). Yes, it’s laudable to “like” Scripture passages posted on Facebook. But, sorry to burst your bubble, it’s not enough. A friend told me jokingly, "I don’t have to worry about missing my Bible reading because you always post a passage for me to read!” Dennis and I share our Facebook page and, to be honest, the daily Scripture posting is his. After his morning Bible reading, Dennis faithfully posts a passage he has prayed about. After my friend’s comment, he, math guy that he is, did a little calculation. If one just read what he posted, it would take him/her 34 years to read the Bible through. Not much opportunity for getting into the depth there, is there?

The long and short of it is that a cursory perusal of verses here and there will not produce life-changing fruit. There has to be a delving into God’s word.

There are two passages in Scripture where someone was handed a scroll containing God’s words and was told to eat it. One was Ezequiel. Chapter 3, verse 1, in the book named after him reads, “So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll…And he said…Son of man, cause thy body to eat, and fill thy bowels (i.e., digest it) with the roll that I give thee. Then I did eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.” In Revelation 10:9-10, John is told to eat a little book. The angel tells him, “It shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.” Do you see a pattern here? The words of God are delightful, sweet to the palate, but to do the body good they must be swallowed and digested. The digestion part, not quite as pleasant as the eating! But there can’t be life-giving sustenance without the more difficult and sometimes “bitter”process of digestion.

The current generation of Christians seem to be pleasure-loving, to the unhappy extent of a propensity to want to hear solely about the "fun" things of God (“sweet as honey”) but eschewing anything smacking of the discipline necessary to know God at a deeper level (“belly bitter”). Forget the discipleship stuff, just give me the good stuff.

In Ezequiel 47, when Ezequiel’s guide brings him to a deep river, he enters first to his ankles, then his knees, then to his waist. Finally it gets so deep he would have to swim to cross the river. The spiritual application is easy to see. The process of delving into God’s word and knowing Him begins with the first step, then, as we walk with Him, He takes us to ever deeper levels. He wants to get us to the depth Ezequiel reached—totally covered by His Word, so much so that our every breath is taken swimming in its wonderful, life-giving depth.

In a time when our senses are constantly bombarded with injunctions to “just follow your heart“, even in the Christian world, it is of paramount importance to know God’s word in order to discern truth from folly—and know which way to walk. How else would you know that following your heart is a recipe for disaster? For Jeremiah 17:9-10 says that the “heart is deceitful above all things”. Good luck with the results of following that!

Things are so upside down nowadays that even stalwart Christians are easily endangered. I heard a dear lady I revered as a prayer warrior give her testimony one auspicious day. She referred to “not a leaf falls to the ground without God knowing”. My jaw dropped. Years later I am still reeling from having heard a true blue Christian repeat something that is not in the Bible. While it is written that the Lord knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground, the reference to leaves is flat out not in the Scriptures. This myth might be somewhat innocuous, but it’s a slippery slope from unbiblical idioms to grievous error.

Take some dear friends who fell into the “everything is a demon” fallacy. To validate their beliefs, they went so far as to twist Scripture. Remember the Gadarene demoniac? They actually said, ”Who can tell if he was truly 100% delivered? He probably had to go back multiple times to Jesus or His disciples to have more demons cast out.” Really??? Given that Mark 8:22-25 notes a time when Jesus himself prayed for a blind man twice, it is safe to assume that if that had been the case at least one of the Gospels would have mentioned if the demoniac in question had needed more deliverance. Furthermore, it doesn’t make sense that Jesus would tell the man, once he was delivered, “Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (Mark 5:19) if he was only half-baked. The man’s testimony was such that the next time Jesus came to Decapolis, people came to him for healing and teaching (Mark 7:31- Mark 8:1). Would they have done so if the man still had demons? My friends added to God’s Word to make it “fit” their narrative. By indiscriminately adding to God’s Word, they veered into error, taking with them many who failed to discern God’s written Word for themselves.

Let’s not follow in the footsteps of that misguided mother who failed to provide proper sustenance for her babe. Let us be of the company of those who drink the good milk of God’s Word with gusto, digesting it, living it, letting it course through their inner man, edifying, changing, challenging, coming every day closer to perfection (Hebrews 6:1).

“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby” (1

Peter 2:2).

“Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:17-18).