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Writer's pictureBrian Doyle

Well Fed

There’s a well known candy bar that claims it can “satisfy” those who eat it. Some of their commercials have even replaced well known comics who complain and whine with the person of interest in the commercial until they eat something and become themselves again. Yesterday, I was restless in a similar way the whole day. It was my day off, but instead of sleeping in (I did, sort of, but not like I usually do), I couldn’t sleep. The whole day I felt restless. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t calm my mind, and I didn’t have quiet in my soul. It was a good day, don’t get me wrong, but all day, I knew something was off. It didn’t hit me until the end of the day when I saw my Bible sitting on the dining table unopened. It wasn’t a Candy Bar or a meal I missed that was leaving me feeling “off,” It was my quiet time with the Lord that I neglected that only made me understand the wrongness of my day.


How often do we look to everything else to bring us satisfaction, when Jesus taught us to pray, saying “give us this day our daily bread”? And what did He do, often? He went alone, to a desolate place before the start of the day, to pray and spend time with the Father. There’s something to be said if we’re feeling weak and restless. There’s something to be said if we’re feeling out of sync: we’re not being fed, and the only source, the bread of Life is Jesus. It is only through Him and His word that we can find fulfillment, even as life is crashing and burning all around us. Want to feel satisfied? It’s not a chocolate bar that can do so. We can only be well fed as we come to the Shepherd who cares for His sheep.


John 6:25-59


When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”


Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”


So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”


The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.




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