Day 26: Fill

Read: John 6:52-59 

Picture this: You’re hungry, possibly verging on hangry, and excited to have food in your body after a few hours since your last meal or maybe even after a workout. As you eat, the meal is delicious, but when the food is gone you’re not filled. To add to the frustration, you paid $20 on this meal because this is Chicago, one of the best food cities in America. This is disappointing, but it’s usually what happens when we neglect to know and understand what truly fills our bodies.  

Exercising programs have reached a high in the 21st century to meet the demands of American diet culture. Most of these programs come with meal plans that are catered to, or advertised to be catered to, the needs of the people who have invested in these programs. The issue here is that no one’s body is the same. Our nutritional needs and lifestyles are all different, but we continue to fund these programs because of good advertising and goals we want to meet. This is an easy path to take because it’s so normalized, but yet again we are neglecting to know and understand what truly fills our bodies. 

The bread that the Jews ingested was common to them. It was routine. They knew the results that came with following rules and keeping traditions. When Jesus made them question whether this is what would truly sustain them, they were confused. When you change your diet, your body freaks out a little. It has to go through an adjusting period before it accepts what it’s adjusting it to. The same goes with the Jews who Jesus spoke to in the synagogue at Capernaum. They didn’t all understood how a person could fill them. They weren’t all ready to think outside of what they were used to see that Jesus alone could sustain them and provide eternal life. 

Write down some things you have filled yourself with that did not satisfy you. Then write down what can you do today to make a daily habit out of turning to Christ and being filled with what only He can give.