I love cooking.

It’s a fairly recent development. I think it got really serious when I started watching cooking shows and reading cooking blogs.

It hasn’t always been that way. When I first got married I made breakfast burritos with maple sausage. Just one bite inspired my gag reflex. It tasted like Mexican food drenched in syrup.

Matt actually ate one and went back for seconds (because he’s a man and I feel like they will eat anything) but half way through he conceded. It was wretched. But now I think I’m a fairly decent cook. I love to add layers of flavor to my food and I love to make things from scratch.

And as a rule I stay away from maple sausage. Yuck.

I also enjoy being educated about healthy food and exercise, especially running. So, I read a lot about it.

I’ve watched all the “You’re practically made of corn and GMO’s are the devil” documentaries. I also read all the “How not to poop yourself while you’re running” blogs. If you know me, you know I have an issue with this.

I wanted to have my second child naturally. So, I consumed everything I could find on natural child birth. I read books. I watched documentaries and every episode of Call the Midwife. It’s totally educational, trust me.

I felt like I could have given birth in my living room and have had my three year old cut the cord.

When I get passionate about something I want to be well informed. I also want to know what I’m talking about if it comes up in conversation with others. The interesting thing about it is the more I watch someone cook, the more I want to cook. The more I read about running, the more I want to run. The more information I had about having a baby naturally, the more confident I felt about it.

I was totally this way in college about the Bible. It was either incredibly annoying or inspiring to everyone I was close to, maybe a little bit of both. But when I got to college I realized how little I knew.

Sure, I knew the stories but I grew up in a denomination that would pick one scripture and kind of stamp it on any situation and just leave out the context. I got involved with a campus ministry that really challenged me in this area.

And looking back, they were so gracious, because I know I said some pretty wacky things because of the totally weird way I learned to read the Bible.

So, I was voracious in my appetite for scripture. My Bible was in tatters and I loved it. I was being challenged and I couldn’t back down, especially in a university setting where believing the Bible is like believing in fairies or unicorns.

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. ”

— 2 Timothy 2:15

Whether it’s cooking, running, having babies, or studying scripture I have found this one thing to be true: my appetite for these things grow as I feed it.

And if I don’t feed something then my awareness of it, my passion for it, seems to lessen. I often don’t even recognize it until it seems like a distant memory and when I talk about it I say things like, “I remember when I was…”

Recently, I’ve recognized that my passion has waned in the intentional study of scripture.

While I still read the Bible regularly those intentional times of digging in to scripture have not been as regular and sadly, since they birth of my second child they have been all but absent.

This started to impact my life in a few ways:

1. Struggling with thoughts of fear.

2. Struggling with boredom and a general lack of purpose.

3. Not being able to readily recall scriptures or their references.

“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ”

— Colossians 3:16

I knew that something needed to change and taking intentional steps in that direction has really helped me. But it didn’t happen overnight. It took some time.

I am so thankful that we serve a merciful God. I never want to presume upon His mercy but it’s there for a reason and that reason is; I’m kind of slow. Haha.

I especially love the way Paul writes. Romans always gives my brain and my heart a good workout. So, that’s where I’ve started.

And in those quiet moments where I let the beauty of scripture sink down deep and I turn the words over in my mind I am struck by the intricacy of Paul’s writing as inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I can’t just read scripture for reading’s sake and feel nourished. But I’m tempted to so that I can check it off my list. I think everyone struggles with that. I have to feed my passion for the study of scripture or my passion will wane.

Sometimes I hear that still small voice of the Holy Spirit asking me, “What are you feeding on?”

Because what I feed myself is what I will grow in my passion for. I love that God designed us that way.

So, what have you been feeding on?

Can you tell when you’ve been feeding on the wrong things verses the right things?

What are you passionate about or maybe preoccupied by?

What does that say about your habits; i.e. what you watch, listen to, read?