Nutritional Quality

This is the second of two articles focused on applying nutrition principles to spiritual health. The first was on nutritional quantity and concentrated on finding a good balance between intake and action. 

This second article will focus on the quality of our nutrition. The core of nutritional quality is ensuring our bodies receive good fuel. Not all calories are equal, and we need a balanced diet to ensure we have what we need to operate at our best. 

The debate around spiritual quality is intense. There are as many differences of opinion held around dietary preferences as there are in the church regarding doctrine and theology. People can identify with their diets, causing any opposing viewpoint to feel like an attack. 

With this context in mind, I want to focus on the bigger picture of nutritional quality and apply the same viewpoint to our spiritual diet.

When evaluating the quality of our food, there is no shortage of criteria we can apply. many are a matter of personal preference. There are a couple that are almost universally accepted.

One that is widely accepted is the benefit we gain by avoiding highly processed foods in favor of less processed options. 

We can ask ourselves two questions to evaluate how highly processed our food is: 

1. Does it occur naturally? 

2. How many steps take place between its creation and arrival on your plate? 

Natural Occurrence

If you were walking outdoors on a farm, in a forest, or in a field, would it be possible to t find this food item? Things like meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, fruit, nuts, grains, seeds, and even dairy occur naturally. Though if you find a fish in a field, probably don’t eat it. They are all made up of naturally occurring products. 

Another way to think of it is to consider what is on the list of ingredients. The list of ingredients for an apple is apple. The shorter the list, the more naturally occurring the food or drink. 

The more we can include foods in our diet that are naturally occurring and don’t have an ingredient label, the better off we will be.  

Production Steps

Next, we can look at how processed our foods are. All of our food is processed to a degree. Rather than thinking of foods as good or bad, processed or non, think of them as existing on a continuum. A healthy diet will lean towards foods that are less processed. 

An apple is picked and then washed or rinsed and ready to eat. Meat, poultry, and fish all involve killing an animal, preparing the meat, and then cooking it to be safely consumed. These are more processed than fruits or vegetables but still on the lower end of the spectrum.  

Using these two criteria can help us helpfully evaluate our food. Gummy bears don’t exist in nature and are made of various artificial ingredients. They also, as a result, go through a long production process before they arrive in the bag on the shelves of our grocery store or gas station. 

We know this, but having a framework to consistently and objectively evaluate our options is helpful. The idea is not to cut out all processed foods or never touch a gummy bear but to honestly look at our food choices and lean towards less processed options. How far we do that or how exclusively it is up to us and will depend on our goals.

Matching our nutrition with our goals is the foundation of any successful program or diet. This is true physically and spiritually as well. 

Spiritual Nutrition Quality

The two criteria mentioned above can help evaluate our spiritual nutrition. When I use the term spiritual nutrition, I am referring to the information we consciously and unconsciously consume that informs our faith and conception of God. 

Jesus called twelve men to follow him and be taught by him for some time. These men were labeled disciples because of the intentional way they chose to be formed by the life and teaching of Jesus. 

Disciples of what?

All of us are in the process of being discipled. You may not consider yourself religious or spiritual, but all of us are in a constant state of becoming. The only question is what or who is discipling us? Who are we following?

Everything we read, watch, listen to and spend time with plays a part in forming our souls and how we see the world. Whether we realize it or not, we are affected by our surroundings. Everything from our parents to the shows we watch on Netflix attempts to steer us in a particular direction or reinforce a worldview. 

If we ignore this, we are more likely to adopt viewpoints that we wouldn’t have typically considered. This does not have to be a negative outcome; we can be encouraged in a good direction just as easily as a bad one. It’s the whole idea behind the well-known saying, “show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” 

We are all in the process of becoming our future selves. The people we surround ourselves with and the information we consume plays a large part in determining who that person is. 

Point of Origin

With our physical food, we discussed the need to look at two primary criteria: is it naturally occurring, and how processed is it?

Spiritually we ask what the source of our information is. Just like we want to trace our food back to the source to determine its benefit and effect on our bodies, we want to trace our information back to its origin. 

From where is this idea or thought coming? Do facts back it up? Is this one man’s opinion that he stole off the internet, or is it coming from a reliable source? 

As followers of Jesus, our source for truth is scripture taken in context. There is a long history of the church navigating the truth of the Bible and trying to apply it to culture. There have been moments of great success and times of significant failure. The fault, however, lies not in the Bible but misinterpretation, either unwillingly or purposefully, for selfish motives. 

Our first question has to be to evaluate the source.

Processed Truth

The following criterion is to count the food’s steps before arriving at your table. Like food, we can look at how processed our information is. Ideally, our information will be traced back to scripture with as few steps as possible. 

It is processed if you are reading your Bible in Greek and Hebrew. The words on the page have been studied and translated by teams of scholars. There are many different translations because each group emphasizes various aspects of language and chooses different word choices. 

No major doctrinal issues are disputed due to the language, but it is good to know that most people are reading a translation. As a church, we need to continuously elevate the priority of the Bible in all we teach and communicate. 

When one man claims ownership of this truth or restricts other people’s access to engage in conversation and debate its interpretation, we end up with cults, dogma, and the exploitation of the gospel for one person’s agenda. 

God desires to speak to every one of us. He does this through culture, music, other people, art, nature, and even food. He is constantly in conversation with each of us, willing to listen. What he says will always be consistent with what he has written in his word. 

As we learn to listen to him and study the Bible, we will be better equipped to hear God speak to us regularly. 

So What Do We Do?

How, then, do we apply these ideas to our daily diet of scripture to develop and strengthen our faith? We need to do four things. We need to eat well, share meals with our community, learn to discern and verify the truth, and fast regularly. 

Eat Well

First, we need to eat. We can not function without fuel. This may seem like an obvious point, but it demands being said. Too often, people think that to lose weight or get in shape; they need to starve themselves. If we need to be in a calorie deficit to lose fat, then the larger the deficit, the better, right?

Without eating, our body goes into starvation mode and does all it can to hold on to calories, not burn them. We also lose the ability to exercise or train because we lack energy. Our physical performance suffers as well as our mental agility. Our body is stressed and is only concerned with surviving. 

Spiritually, we must learn how to read God’s word for ourselves and develop the habit of feeding our souls. The more we read and understand who God is and what he is doing in scripture and in our lives, the more we will recognize our need for time with him. 

The church is a place for men and women to unite and encourage each other through studying and teaching God’s word. I can not passively receive teaching on Sunday, leave for the weekend then repeat the process in a week. If this is all I do, I am not contributing to the community but functioning as a parasite. I am taking away nourishment but not giving anything in return. 

Studying scripture and knowing God’s word is not only for my benefit but also an act of love and service to my community. What God says to me is not meant only for my gain but to be used to encourage and equip those around me, which brings us to our second point. 

Demanding Lives need Better Nutrition.

Faith grows like a muscle. It needs good nutrition to heal. 

Going further with God requires better fuel.

We can limit our ability to follow God if we don’t eat enough (example from Alone)

Eat in Community

Gaining the ability to read for ourselves doesn’t mean that we are cut off from others or don’t still benefit from reading or studying together. Richard Foster said that we need to be alone to be with others. We must know how to be alone and with God, to truly be with others. 

A great meal is as much about the conversation around the table as it is about the food. Deepening our walk with God and hearing from him personally allows us to engage in discussions with other men and women doing the same thing, creates interdependence, and moves us away from dependence. It’s like showing up at a potluck with a dish rather than only eating what everyone else brought. 

As we hear from God, we can engage in community and encourage the people around us. God speaks to us both for our benefit as well as the benefit of the people around us.

Throughout the story of scripture, God uses individuals as conduits to bless communities. Each of us has the potential to hear from God and make a difference in the lives of people around us. Not only people that share the same faith as us but everyone, regardless of their beliefs. We all benefit when we love our neighbors and seek the best for our communities. 

God will use our relationship with him to impact the lives of people around us. We will have the spiritual nourishment needed to encourage others and, both literally and figuratively, bring something to the table. 

Few things are more exciting than hearing how God is speaking to someone else. I love hearing someone relate what new truth God is teaching them or how they grow in their faith. I always walk away challenged or encouraged from those conversations.  

God created us for community. We function best when we share our lives with others and live authentically. We have to care for ourselves, not be a parasite in our communities. We need to do the work of hearing from God and developing our relationship with him so that we can be a blessing to others. 

A communal message

Traditionally the church has filtered information by reading and studying the Bible in the community context. Paul wrote primarily to faith communities with the intention that they would hear his message and then process it as a group. 

The Bible does not teach us, as men or women, to follow Jesus alone. He assembled a team of disciples and taught them both collectively and individually. Just as the disciples needed each other, we need community with other believers. Simply put, none of us are smart enough or have it all together to do this on our own. We all have our preferences and blind spots that require someone else to intervene and correct us when we err. 

The Bible tells us a story. It is a story about God, who he is, and his relationship with humankind. From the first page of the Bible to the last, God is drawing people into a community with himself. It only makes sense that he would use scripture as a tool to extend his efforts. As we open the Bible with each other, God uses that time to deepen our relationship not only with him but with each other. 

Reading in the community also helps us apply scripture to our lives. We already mentioned the benefit of having others with us to point out blind spots or weaknesses. Another bonus of reading in a faith community is that it holds us accountable for actually doing something with what we learn. 

So much of what we are instructed to do in the Bible requires other people. We must live in the community to know what it means to love our neighbor. Being kind, patient, generous, forgiving, and vulnerable requires relationships. As we live with others, we grow as disciples, personally and communally. 

It makes sense that God would design us this way when we remember how important community is to him. In the beginning, he declared that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone. God pulls people together as he speaks, whether through the prophets in the Old Testament or Paul’s letters in the new.

People describe the Bible as God’s personal letter to each of us, but that is only partially true. Scripture is God’s way of communicating to us as a community. It not only informs us, but it forms us. The Bible takes men and women and builds them into a fellowship of faith. A friendship with God as the ultimate common denominator is more important than any personal preference or opinion we hold. 

Trust, But Verify

Living in a community requires leadership, however. For many of us, that means a traditional type of church setting with leadership and some degree of structure. In a group of even fifty people, it would be hard for every person to have equal time to speak or teach. Some of us are more gifted in this regard, and many people have little desire to serve others in such a way. 

As necessary as it may be for leadership to exist, the individuals in that position never intended to assume the ownership of truth for the group. Preachers, teachers, leaders, or whatever title they may hold are not to be above questioning. It is a disservice to grant them that authority. 

I fear that, too often, church leaders are given celebrity status or exalted above other community members. This affords them a longer leash and creates a particular type of danger. We all need to understand God’s word for ourselves and recognize truth and error. 

Gaining discernment allows us to be faithfully critical of what we are taught. We no longer blindly believe everything we are taught. Whether from the message on Sunday morning or on the nightly news, and especially online, our faith doesn’t depend on a person but on scripture. We have the tools to evaluate what we are taught. 

One thing to watch out for is for this not to be done in a spirit of cynicism or arrogance. Scripture is our source of truth, not a pastor, priest, podcast, or Bible study. These things are good and can be great resources, but they are unreliable as objective sources of truth. They all offer second-hand information. 

It is not my intention to sound overly critical or suspicious. I think the vast majority of men and women teaching in churches are sincere and aim to point people to Jesus, nothing more. I also know how easy it is to fall into arrogance or pride. We can slip into destructive behavior patterns when we realize nobody is holding us accountable or cannot do so. We need other people speaking into our lives for our good, and that is true regardless of position. 

Paul ends his introduction in the letter to the Galatians by clearly stating his desire for God to be elevated and exalted above anyone else. A healthy leader will leave us wanting to know and love God more. If we are drawn more to an individual than to Jesus, we need to examine our motives and maybe the leadership. 

Elimination Diet/Fasting

The final step to apply all of this to our spiritual lives is to adopt the practice of an elimination diet regularly. Jesus told his disciples what to do when they fasted. The idea of them fasting was taken for granted as something they would do. Despite this, I have heard perhaps one or two sermons on fasting in total. 

Elimination diets are the physical cousin of fasting and can be incredibly helpful when determining which foods are beneficial and which are inflammatory. The experience can be a bit intense, but most people only need to do so once or twice to get the results and information they need. It entails cutting out all possibly inflammatory foods (dairy, grains, legumes, lactose, high processed foods, nuts, and other allergens) for two to four weeks. 

Following that window, foods are gradually reintroduced into the individual’s diet, and the reaction is monitored. The idea is that by isolating individual foods, people can better understand how their body reacts to each one and make more informed decisions for their nutrition in the future. 

Consider all the sources of information you have in your daily life. So many voices compete for our attention and want to influence our lives. Some are healthy and want the best for us, while others have different goals. Many times, just like the food we eat, we are unaware of something’s influence on our thoughts because of how accustomed we are to hearing their voice. 

A spiritual elimination diet or fasting is a helpful practice. Start by making a list of all the sources of information in your life. What or who is speaking to you and influencing your decisions? Who is shaping your worldview? 

Is how you treat your neighbor, raise your children, love your spouse, or vote more informed by the Bible or what you see in culture? Do your priorities more closely align with Jesus or Instagram? 

Cut out all the unnecessary voices for two to four weeks. Become comfortable sitting in silence. Does the idea of sitting in silence make you uncomfortable? Why? What thoughts, emotions, fears, or anxieties surface that need to be addressed rather than drowned out?

Turn off the background noise and fun distractions and listen to what God is saying to you in the quiet. Rarely do we see God shout in the Bible? He speaks and even whispers to get people’s attention but rarely yells. 

What would it look like for you to reduce every voice but God’s in your life? How can you make hearing from him a priority? What would that routine be? 

Second-Hand Information

This is a side benefit because we learn to remove second-hand information from our lives. Most of what we learn and know about God comes through someone else. An author, speaker, teacher, or even a friend. Each can be incredibly helpful, but all those sources have a particular angle or bias to what they have learned. 

Hearing other people’s thoughts and learning from their experiences is good. We need a community to help us get a complete view of who God is and what he is saying. 

Suppose we are too dependent on others though we risk never hearing from God ourselves. We never learn to discern his voice or enjoy the pleasure of knowing his specific will for our lives. 

Like a game of telephone, every teacher or speaker adds a little bit of themselves into the message they deliver. We need to be willing to make an effort to hear from God because he desires to speak to us personally.

Conclusion

The quality of our food matters, both physically and spiritually. What we bring into our mind and body plays a large part in our performance and operation. The more we can eat naturally occurring, less processed foods, the healthier we will be. 

Feeding our souls with truth rooted in the word of God and refined by the purifying effect of community, the healthier our faith will be. We can reap the benefits of learning with others and contributing to the conversation around the table about what God is saying to us personally and how that may encourage others in their journey. As we fast from secondary sources, we will learn to feast on God’s presence and hear his voice through the crowd.