NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

Day 22 - More than hormones

Scripture focus: "Only take care, son of man, that you don't rebel like these rebels. Open your mouth and eat what I give you." When I looked he had his hand stretched out to me, and in the hand a book, a scroll. He unrolled the scroll. On both sides, front and back, were written lamentations and mourning and doom. He told me, "Son of man, eat what you see. Eat this book. Then go and speak to the family of Israel." As I opened my mouth, he gave me the scroll to eat, saying, "Son of man, eat this book that I am giving you. Make a full meal of it!" So I ate it. It tasted so good—just like honey. Ezekiel 2:8 – 3:3 The Message

"Our lives, that is, our experience – what we need and want and feel – are important in forming the Christ-life in us. Our lives are, after all, the stuff that is being formed. But they are not the text for directing the formation itself. Spirituality means, among other things, taking ourselves seriously. It means going against the cultural stream in which we are incessantly trivialized to the menial status of producers and performers, constantly depersonalized behind the labels of our degrees or our salaries. But there is far more to us than our usefulness and our reputation, where we've been and who we know; there is the unique, irreproducible, eternal, image-of-God me. A vigorous assertion of personal dignity is foundational to spirituality." Eat This Book, p.23

Our bodies and souls love to inform our sense of self.

Don't be fooled by such narrow thinking and believing.

We are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14 NRSV) by God himself.

We are more than our hormones, our genes and our life experience. Most of who we are and what we are created for is determined by God.

God reveals himself so that we can be formed and shaped by the knowledge of Him. He doesn't show up to pay tribute to our neediness, but he uses our longings to get our attention, and draw us unto him. As we come close to him, we learn some pretty amazing stuff.

Recommended reading: Psalm 21-23

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