Meat and Potatoes By Lea Lockhart
“You can have all the popsicles and ice cream you want”, they said, just before taking me down to the operating room for a tonsillectomy. I could picture myself with a tray of various flavors of ice cream and popsicles, and a bell for me to ring to order more. That sounded like heaven as a 5-year-old.
However, they left out a vital piece of information, and I felt quite betrayed upon waking. They failed to tell me that my throat would feel like it was on fire; like I had swallowed a handful of razor blades. It hurt so much that I refused all ice-cream and popsicles.
Somehow, someone eventually convinced me to try eating some baby oatmeal cereal. Why baby cereal? I have no idea, but from that point on, that’s all I would eat. They were happy about this at first, but it continued on. When I went home from the hospital I ate baby cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Well, there came a point that it was no longer healthy for me to only consume baby cereal; this food meant for a baby, regardless of my objections. I was 5 years old after all, and I was far beyond baby food days. It was time to move on to the more mature age-appropriate food like meat and potatoes.
This true story reminds me of how when God saved me, I was like a newborn. What a beautiful time. I was in awe of my Savior and Heavenly Father. I had such childlike faith and zeal. Picture a father encouraging his young child to jump to him from the side of the pool. I would not have hesitated… Oh, that wonderful childlike faith. It was comfortable, it was easy. I was saved. Thank you God!
I would love to have stayed there forever just like I wanted to stay with my infant cereal. May we never forget our time as an infant… as a new believer, but he wants us to long for spiritual milk…His word.
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1 Peter 2:2-3
He wants to grow us to the meat and potatoes of knowing Him through His Word and becoming like Him.
Do you desire to grow? Tim Merwin, my pastor, has encouraged many times over the years for us to “position ourselves for God’s grace”. To me that means to put yourself in a position, situation or place (i.e. church) that God can easily work in your heart because you have submitted, surrendered or made yourself vulnerable to allow God to work. To Illustrate it, Tim would say “get on the train tracks of God’s grace.” Meaning, put yourself in a place where you can be “hit” by grace, hit by the train of grace. People think I am going to stand over here off the tracks and think grace will hit me. It can…. but…. why not get in the way of God’s daily and normal means of grace”.
May we all desire the meat and potatoes for the glory of God.
So good! I’m loving my meat and potatoes! It allows me to see Him and know Him more in the most beautiful ways! So satisfying!