Stealing Similac

“[By] this time you ought to be teachers, [but] you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Hebrews 5:12-14

Have you ever noticed that the grocery store locks up baby formula? Similac is safely stashed behind sliding Plexiglas doors. There must be a reason why this particular product is behind lock and key. My son was nursed by mother until he was transitioned to solid foods, so I never had to pay for baby formula. One thing I did notice, though, is that it is expensive. Since purchasing Similac requires the assistance of a key-holding grocery clerk, I can only deduce that its price makes it un-affordable for some families who are unable to nurse their children. It seems a small chasm to cross to justify the theft of formula to nourish an infant (I am not condoning theft, but it’s easy to see how one would resort to theft rather easily).

According to the container, Similac contains essential nutrients to support mental and physical development. It’s branded as “Complete Nutrition for Your Baby’s First Year” which is subsequently captioned by “Closer Than Ever to Breast Milk”. Is it just me, or do those two statements refute one another? If you’re trying to mimic the nutritional value of breast milk, you are acknowledging that there is a more complete nutritional solution available, which means you cannot say that your product is “Complete” because by definition (and your own admission), it is incomplete. In any case, babies need essential nutrition to grow and develop and when breastfeeding is not available, Similac provides a substantially similar supplemental product.

Pure Spiritual Milk

1 Peter 2:2 says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation”. There is no question that babies need milk. They scream, they cry, they fuss, they demand it. Several times a day they need to be fed. Several times per night they need to be fed. Mother’s milk is the purest nutrition available to a growing baby, and they long for it. Eventually, they start breaking teeth, they start desiring more sustenance that just liquid, so we start mixing in other soft foods; oatmeal, applesauce, yogurt and the like; blending up fruits and vegetables to keep the good nutrition in hand for feeding time. No one ever expects their child to drink milk forever. That would be absurd. Do you anticipate your 16-year-old coming home from high school asking for nothing more than a glass of milk? No. You expect they will eat you out of house and home. Their appetite seems endless. You wouldn’t force them to drink only milk when you know they need more than that, would you?

At thirty-four years of age, I can tell you that the only time I think about drinking a glass of milk, is when I have a package of Oreo’s in front of me. Double-stuff, chocolate creme Oreo’s. Now that’s the stuff this 38″ waistline is made of! When I’m hungry, I think of hamburgers, tacos, steak and potatoes, washed down with a cold glass of sweet tea; not milk. My appetite, as unrefined as my tastes may be, has graduated from what it was thirty-three years ago. It’s a natural progression to grow from milk, to soft foods; from soft foods to complex textures; from complex foods to solids (and even sometimes live long enough to regress back!) Our digestive systems develop, and we seek a different kind of nutrition and satisfaction as we grow. “Solid food” in the biblical truth heading this entry, “is for the mature”. Unlike infants, who process their food quickly, and sometimes immediately disposes of it (from the top or bottom), food stays in my digestive track longer, more nutrients are extracted from them, and the waste is discarded.

Solid Spiritual Food

Considering the natural progression of an infant through childhood and into adulthood, and the corresponding nutritional needs of the physical body, why then do we assume that our spiritual growth and development is any different? At thirty-four years of age I eat steak instead of drink milk. I don’t read children’s books about “Seeing Spot Run” unless I’m reading them to my son. My mind requires more stimulation in the same way my stomach requires more sustenance. The Bible warns us that we ought to be matured enough in our Christian journey so as to teach, yet we have not grown past the elementary principles of faith. The Church is still sipping on milk when they should be dining on steak.

As a father it is my biblical mandate to administer discipline when my son misbehaves (Hebrews 12:7-11). A swat on the backside, or a stern talking to generally does the trick and the behavior is corrected, at least until the pain on his backside diminishes and he starts to push the boundaries again. Thirty years my junior, my son does not discern what is good and bad for him, he is driven by what entertains him, what gets his adrenaline pumping, or what he sees other kids doing. He is not able to distinguish good or evil, things “just are” for him. His innocence doesn’t make him blameless – he still gets in trouble when he breaks the rules, whether he knew the rule or not. He gets in trouble because I set the rules and he hasn’t learned them yet, but I am trying to teach them to him so he doesn’t keep getting in trouble. I am able to discern what is good for him, and what’s not therefore I encourage him to do the good, and train him to avoid the bad. I encourage him to run around in the grass, but not on the street; to jump around on the playground, but not on the couch, etc. Just because you are not aware of what the Bible says does not relieve you of the responsibility of knowing it. In this case, ignorance is not bliss.

Spoon-fed or Self-fed

I never plopped an 8 oz. filet down on the tray of my son’s highchair. I did not hand him a steak knife and tell him, “Dig in”. No, instead I prepared meals that that pleased his palette, and hunkered down on the bar-stool making airplane noises and uncontrollably making my mouth move the way I wanted is to – I’m convinced there is no avoiding that silliness. He would bat at my hands and eyeball the dish to see how much was left. I could always tell when he was finished by how much of the food stayed in his mouth.

One fateful day, the day every parent dreads, he reached for the spoon. He no longer wanted daddy to deliver the applesauce, he wanted to do it on his own. It was no longer my responsibility to moderate how much food was on the spoon, or how on-target the delivery of the food was. It was time for him to begin developing motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and realize that if he missed his mouth and the food hit the floor he wasn’t going to be able to eat it. Daddy wasn’t there helping him anymore; daddy turned from administration to coaching. No longer could I say, “Let me do it”, but now it turned to, “Here’s how you do it”. Happily, today, more food makes it in his mouth than doesn’t, but he still hasn’t mastered the art of self-feeding (but neither have I, for that matter – a fact my fashion ties will corroborate). My son has taken ownership of his feeding, now all he requires from me is that I provide the food, he’ll do the rest. 1 Corinthians 3:2 reminds us, that as a child, we are fed milk because we are not prepared to receive and process solid food. And on that dreaded day when baby decides its time to feed themselves, it does not instantly mean steak is on the menu.

Hebrews 5 encourages us to make sure that our spiritual lives are very similar to this progression. We are not to be complacent being spoon-fed the gospel. Pastors, Sunday School teachers, elders, are not to be responsible for our daily spiritual feeding. We need to reach for the spoon, we need to reach for the Word, and we need to feed ourselves. We must own it. This is not to be dismissive of the pastor-teachers role – every once in a while I go to a restaurant and enjoy a meal I can’t cook at home – but to underscore the importance of self-feeding, daily study of God’s word for healthy spiritual growth. You wouldn’t starve your children, only allowing them to be fed on Sunday morning, why would you then starve your heart being only preached to once per week?

Constant Practice

In order to do well at anything requires practice. Routine execution of exercises creates muscle memory allowing athletes to perform without thinking. Their bodies react naturally, seemingly preemptively, to external stimulation as a result of practice. Anyone who knows me, knows I am a baseball fan. I’m not nearly as good at playing it as I am watching it, because I am not practiced. I play a game of softball maybe twice a year, and I can muster up some impressive hits, catch a few balls, miss a few balls, and convince most people that I’m a decent player. What I can’t do is read a pitch. I cannot instinctively tell by the pitchers finger position what pitch he is throwing. Identifying a curve ball, slider, change up, or fastball eludes me, all I can do it gauge whether or not its likely to cross the plate in an area where I can make contact with it (and sometimes even that is a challenge).

I don’t choke on my food – correction, I rarely choke on my food. I have learned by experimentation and repetition what fits into my mouth, and at what point I have chewed my food so that it will smoothly descend my gullet. Sometimes I get it wrong, sometimes I’m so excited to get the next bite I don’t fully masticate my meat, and I can feel it working its way down my esophagus in a rather unpleasant, sometimes downright painful manner. We must be constantly consuming the Word, a regular intake of biblical doctrine, theology, and principles. Mulling them over in the gullet of our mind to extract the essential truths of the Word. Mentally digesting scripture so that our spiritual well-being is nourished and fattened. I would think that I should be stumbling over one scripture because I so excited to get to the next one, but sometimes I have to chew on that tough piece of meat in order to swallow it. I must, like my digestive system, distinguish between was is useful and what is not. As we listen to teaching, read books, enjoy music, we must sort out in my mind what is spiritually nutritional and what is waste. We must, as Romans 12:9 says, “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”

You may or may not be aware that the digestive process begins in the mouth. The moment food enters the body via the mouth saliva begins to break it down. That process continues through the stomach, where the food is broken down more completely. Continuing through your upper and lower intestines, nutrients are absorbed by the body and used as fuel for your organs. Anything left over is the evacuated. While the digestive process may be of little interest to you, the digesting the Word of God is very similar. The Word makes it way into you ears, where attentive listening migrates those concepts into you mind. Your mind processes the information (hopefully measuring it against scripture you’ve memorized), and determines what is useful to continue fueling growth in your faith. That fuel is then implemented by your heart (or will) into practical daily living, while everything that is not useful is discarded.

 Stealing Similac

It is time to graduate from Gerber. The bare essentials may only nourish us for so long, ultimately we must move on to something of substance. As an adult, you would not break into the vault to steal Similac to satisfy your hunger. Why then do you insist on sipping on only the milk when there is a feast prepared for you? There is something tenderly comforting about nestling into mother’s breast for milk, wrapped tight and warm in her arms. But there is something infinitely more satisfying about cutting into a perfectly cooked filet mignon, that requires us to step out of that comfortable situation to experience the delight of steak dinner. Only then will you realize what you’ve been missing. Only then will your mouth water at the thought of a plateful of delectable tastes and textures that would never have experienced otherwise. I can only tell you how good this steak dinner is, you have to eat it for yourself to truly understand.

Then it is brought to your remembrance that even after you eat, and are filled, you get hungry again. Your spirit ought to never be satisfied with one meal a week, or a snack at a mid-week service. It ought to be planning what meal is next; what is for breakfast tomorrow, or dinner? Are there leftovers to continue enjoying that meal the following day? The is no way that your spiritual growth can flourish when you limit yourself to being fed by someone else. Will you stay an infant? Or will you, like my son, put on daddy’s shoes, snake food from daddy’s plate, and learn what daddy likes to stay out of trouble? Even at three years old, he wants to grow up. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11

You’ve been a Christian how long, and you’re still on Similac?