My kids like to pick up things from the yard on the way to the minivan. Something that seemed so perfectly ordinary to me that I didn’t even notice it will snag my kids’ attention and become fascinating.
This particular fall day, it was leaves. Ellie had picked up a few she thought were pretty from our front yard. The leaves were pretty dry, and as Ellie looked at them and examined them on our way down the road, the inevitable happened.
“Mommy, my leaf broke,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Why do leaves break?”
“You see all those little lines in the leaves?” I asked. “When the leaves are on the tree, nutrients flow through those little lines and keep the leaf alive. When the leaf falls off the tree, it doesn’t have anything flowing through it, and it dries out.”
“I guess when things are dry, they break easier,” Ellie said.
She was talking about leaves, but she could just as well have been talking about any living thing. Living things depend on nutrients flowing through them to sustain them. This applies to everything from tiny organisms on up to our far-more-complicated, physical bodies.
It applies to the spiritual part of us as well.
Just as we feed our physical bodies to keep them going, so we must feed the spiritual part of ourselves. If we want to live spiritually, we must have nutrients flowing through us. Our spiritual life depends on it.
We know what kinds of foods our bodies need. But what about our spirits? How do we keep them nourished, healthy, and growing?
There are three primary ways.
First, we develop our prayer life. It’s impossible to live and grow spiritually if we don’t spend regular time with the One who created us. Tragically, many of us truly don’t realize how vitally important prayer is. We tend to think of it as an optional activity, something to engage in if we have the time. When we treat prayer as if doing it is great, but not doing it doesn’t really affect us, we are allowing the nutrients to drain slowly from our veins, and we are becoming dry and brittle.
Second, we spend time in God’s Word. This includes time listening to His Word proclaimed, as well as time in it during our personal devotions. How much and what part of the Bible we should read will vary from person to person. But the fact that we must read it applies to everyone. We may think we know what it says well enough that we don’t need to study it much. That’s not true. The Holy Spirit can make Scripture relevant and meaningful to us, gifting us with fresh realizations about any part of it, even a passage we’ve read many times before. God speaks through His Word, and He doesn’t just do so once, the first time we read it. Thinking we don’t need to study the Bible is either a failure to understand its importance, or simple arrogance.
Third, we fellowship with other believers, both in and out of a church setting. Sure, we can have friends who are not Christians. But we need Christian fellowship as well. We need to worship with others who believe and love the Lord as we do; we need to go through life’s experiences with those who share our Christian perspective; and we need both to give and to receive encouragement in our faith, exhortation, and support.
This coming year, make sure you’re not setting yourself up to be someone who is brittle and breaks easily. Make a plan for letting prayer, Bible study, and fellowship flow through you and keep you vitally alive. God will help you figure out how to make it happen. Then, discipline yourself to do what you know you need to do.
When leaves are dry, they break more easily. When they have the right nutrients flowing through them, they are strong.
Which will you plan to be this year?
John 15:5—I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.