“Viktor Frankl, who was a prisoner in a concentration camp said the subject most talked about in prison was not freedom but food.”
This can be the case on the mission field, college campuses, even in a hospital room. Food is known to be a comfort item. Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone.
My own experiences remind me of how it was like attending an out-of-state college right after high school graduation. I had never lived away from home. Here I was at 18 years old, over 100 miles away from home. It was exciting but daunting too. For the first two months I was a ‘homesick’ freshman.’ I brought my family photo album and high school yearbook and browsed frequently. Thoughts of a good home cooked meal made me feel closer to what was familiar! The homesickness left shortly thereafter but the desire for my favorite meals continued throughout my school years!
It was the same for me on the mission field. Anyone traveling overseas knows the food is not the same as in your own country. Then too, thank God, I’ve been blessed not to have a hospital stay but the testimonies from other individuals all agree. There is nothing like your own kitchen prepared meal.
But even more important than physical hunger is where we can find the spiritual food for our soul. John declared Jesus to be the Bread of Life, John 6:35, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
Some people during that time only wanted what they could get from Jesus. He performed miracles, signs, fed them. Jesus knew most of the people only followed Him to fill their stomachs. They were interested in their own needs. Seeking their own interests. Them and even some today, do not understand, Jesus didn’t come to do His own will or our wills, but the will of the Father, John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” They had just been filled the day before, when Christ fed 5,000 with only a young boy’s lunch! Now, it is good to seek the Lord, but we must love Him for who He is not just for what He provides. Too often we look merely for the natural to satisfy us. What we can see, taste, hear, smell, feel. We limit God to our five senses.
Sadly, many want the goodness of God but have not surrendered their hearts in making Jesus their Lord and Savior. They want to hear how much God loves and forgives them. They want to hear of the blessings of God but will not commit to Him. James 4: 3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss [wrong], that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
A person with an impure heart will never be satisfied. Jesus had already done such a great miracle. They wanted more. The people missed the point Jesus was making in performing that miracle. Miracles only aid those who have pure hearts. Those who are evil and unbelieving will never be satisfied.
God never does anything without a reason. He taught a spiritual lesson in each miracle He performed. For example, Manna was a nutritious food that appeared on the ground every morning beginning shortly after the children of Israel left Egypt. It was yellowish in color. The people, after gathering it, ground it in mills or beat it in a mortar, baked it in pans, and made cakes of it. It tasted like wafers made with honey or fresh oil. This provision continued until they crossed the Jordan and entered the Promised Land, Joshua 5:10-12! In Exodus 16:4, the Lord, in speaking to Moses, called it “bread from heaven.” It was gathered every morning and had to be used up that day or else it stank and bred worms. An exception was on the sixth day; it could be gathered for the Sabbath and didn’t spoil, Exodus 16:19-26.
Moses was commanded by God to keep a memorial of it as a reminder of God’s provision in the wilderness. Jesus alone can satisfy us spiritually. Other means such as religion, works of charity, philosophy, or doctrine are all temporary counterfeits. The only food that can last for all time is the bread that Jesus Himself is, the true gift from God, Jesus’ own Father.
In His letter to the church of Pergamos, in Revelations 2:17, Jesus referred to “the hidden manna” that He will give to overcomers to eat!
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”
Think about that!
Marguerite Wafula
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