Feeding a premature infant is a totally different experience for me.

Our daughter’s daughter entered the world five weeks early at five pounds and five ounces. We were amazed at how perfect she was.

And then she promptly refused to eat.

According to the doctors and nurses, eating issues are a common malady for babies born at this gestational age, but it was less than common for us. This little bit had three adults cajoling, tempting, cuddling, loving around the clock as we tried to get enough nourishment into her little body. We went through multiple bottles and nipples and tried different formulas, but she was still losing weight.

Finally, or so it seemed to us, she was readmitted to the hospital and placed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where milk could be fortified, and where experts hovered and helped. It took a full week, but her weight turned around as she began to eat normally. With a collective sigh of relief, we took her home again.

Sitting in a hospital room through the night gives one much time to think and pray. As I watched our little one, I thought about God’s children. I thought about the nourishment needed for His children to grow into His likeness, and I thought about eating issues.

We have them, don’t we?

In our world, God gives us many and varied opportunities to eat, but we still go days without feeding on His word.

We have the scripture in our own language and preaching all around us. We have access to Bible study aids like commentaries and concordances. We have opportunities for Bible Study with other Christians, but we find them inconvenient or not to our liking.

So, we walk around as malnourished children, susceptible to all manner of spiritual illness. God’s Holy Spirit cajoles and convicts, but we continue to fill our souls with the junk food offered by the world.

“I’m just too stressed to read the Bible.”

“I can’t concentrate right now.”

“I’m too busy to meet with other Christians.”

“The Bible is just too hard for me.”

And we wonder why we have no spiritual strength, why trials overcome us and our faith falters.

Here is what I know, and our new granddaughter is a perfect example of this. We must eat to grow. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).

Time in God’s Word gives me
• inner strength in time of trial
• calmness in times of stress
• hope when despair is raging
• a knowledge of God’s presence and help
• peace that endures in a world of confusion and chaos
• a settled heart as I face each day.

There is no substitute for feasting on God’s Word. There is no replacement for the spiritual food found there.

We tried multiple types of milk (formulas) with our granddaughter before she was able to eat well.

Here is a formula you might try as you feast on God’s Word:

1. Choose a portion of scripture. It may be five verses or a chapter. I like to read through books of the Bible by reading some each day.
2. Ask God to help you understand. His Holy Spirit is ready and willing to help.
3. Read the scripture, and then read it again. No devotional book, blog, or reading can take the place of reading God’s Word for yourself.
4. Ask yourself
   1. What promises are in this passage? What can I thank God for?
   1. What commands for me to follow?
5. What new information do I see?
6. Pray, and ask God to help you apply what you have read as you go through the day.
7. In my opinion, it helps to have a small notebook to write in and a pencil to mark verses

There is no better time to begin eating right than today. May we all address our eating issues by spending more time with our Bible.

II Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

I Peter 2:1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, ² As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: ³ If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

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