Feeding on the Wrong Things

I've mentioned before that Virginia is a living vacuum cleaner. She will eat anything. When I'm cleaning the kitchen, she will wait by my feet for the crumbs to fall to the ground off the counter so she can eat every little morsel. It's hard for me to understand why she would want to eat day old bread crumbs and dried cheese, but she can't get enough of it. I swear we feed her plenty of dog food! She does not need this extra food, it has no nutritional value, and has the potential to make her sick if she gets the wrong thing, like a little piece of jalapeño or pepperoni. She doesn't know the difference between good food or bad food for her, so we tell her "NO!" when she goes for the bad kind. At that point its up to her if she's going to trust us or give into the temptation to ignore us and go for the crusty bread she longs for. Usually, she goes for the bread.

I'm tempted to feed myself on the wrong things too. The world around me tells me messages every day about what is true, valuable and worthwhile. The world says, "Your happiness is all that matters." I see the portrayed in tv shows, the movies, on the internet, the news, political policies, and our culture as a whole. Lots of the messages I hear are easy to dismiss, but others can creep into my mind and convince me of lies without me perceiving it. Lies like, "You're wardrobe isn't good enough- you need new, nicer clothes. You don't want to look like an old lady do you?", or "Why on earth have you chosen to only have 1 car?! Who can live with only 1 car!", or "Why would you want to go into the ministry? You'll never make much money and you'll never be able to change people." If I neglect to read my Bible, it can be easy to think these lies are fact instead of what they are. When screen everything I see, hear, or read through the truths of the Bible, when these lies creep into my head, its so much easier to recall the truth and refuse to let the lies linger in my mind. If I dwell on lies, I'll start to believe them and act on them. If I dwell on Scripture, I'll believe it and act on it. I'm not saying its wrong to watch TV or to put our fingers in our ears and ignore the world around us. If we do that, we'll never be able to reach those who don't yet believe in Jesus with His message. I believe our primary "food" should come from the Word of God, so when worldly lies inevidably come across our minds, we'll be prepared to fight them off.

Virginia may not know what food is good and bad for her, but I do know what's good and bad for me to ingest. My prayer is that God would bring truth to my mind when lies creep up, and help me to make reading the Bible a top priority in my life.