Messy Bessy

Sorry I missed Wednesday's blog. How did your challenge from Monday go? Did you do a few simple tasks as favors?

My mom and dad recently gave me a book that I loved as a little girl.  Whenever we went to the library, that was the book that I wanted to check out. I don't know if it was the cute limericks, or the colorful pictures, but I loved it when my mom read Messy Bessey.  Basically in this story, the little girl had a very messy room with toys in her dresser, clothes on her floor, gum on the ceiling and jam on the door.  (okay, so the jam was actually on the window, but this way it rhymes.)  She has to clean her room and at the end her room is beautiful, just like her.

At the same time my parents gave me Messy Bessey, they also got me Kisses From Katie.  I have not read this book, but from what I have heard it is a true story about a girl who goes on a mission trip her senior year, and, upon returning, realizes that she has to go back.  After she graduates she does just that and lives there as a missionary.

As I think about my parents getting me both of these books I can't help but think about how my thought processes, emotions, and spiritual life have changed since I was a young child.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 

I Corinthians 13:11 

 Just as we grow older and mature physically and mentally, we should grow and mature spiritually as well.  If a child is malnourished, people become concerned.  If someone stops eating, and is starving themselves, people intervene.  Why do we not become concerned if our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ aren't eating?  What if they're malnourished?  The Bible tells us that it is spiritual food, so that we do not experience "spiritual malnutrition," or "stunted growth."

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.  But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 5:13-14

Did you know that when children are underfed and malnourished at a young age they do not know how to eat?  My theory on this is that they have always felt hungry (never satisfied) so they are not aware that they are hungry and that they need to eat.  If you don't read God's Word on a regular basis you probably don't miss it because you've never received the proper "nutrients."  At the beginning, you may have to force yourself to read God's Word, but as you become accustomed to it, you'll find that when you miss a Bible reading, you fill unfulfilled.

(it's now 11:53 and I should probably get this posted before it's Saturday)