By 
Most newborns go through the same process after birth. Initial cries, baths, and tests are the first order of business, but pretty quickly it is time for the baby to eat. Surprisingly this can be a frustrating process. It’s crazy to think they don’t know exactly how, but they don’t.
Basically, they have to be coaxed into trying to feed. Once they figure it out, it becomes routine and they develop an almost ravenous appetite. Soon, even when they’re sleeping and they start to get hungry, they start moving their mouth like they’re actually getting milk! In my humble opinion, this is perhaps the cutest thing in the entire world.
At first they didn’t know they needed milk. Soon they long for it to the point of dreaming about it! Then, seems like overnight, they grow up and grow out of the kid’s menu and eat you out of house and home!
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2:2-3, ESV).
To me, one of the most confounding comments when someone leaves a church is: “I wasn’t being fed.” I get to preach and teach often, and it is absolutely my goal to make sure that people get something to eat (1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12). Yet, while I want people to eat it isn’t my responsibility to provide enough sustenance for their survival.
I am merely serving up an appetizer; no one should try to live on that alone.
No, my job isn’t to feed you everything you need for spiritual growth. It is to lead you to the buffet. As Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, ESV).You cannot thrive on crumbs. You have to eat more than once a week, and every balanced diet says you need more than carbohydrates.
I worked on a plant farm as a teen, and I’ll never forget this one group of weeping willows. There were about 10 of them. When we got them they were small trees, a couple of feet tall in one-gallon buckets. We parked them next to where our water hose was connected because they required frequent watering. They were seldom purchased, and after a couple of years those weeping willows were seven or eight feet tall. The sides of their buckets were cracking, and I was asked to move them and put them in three-gallon buckets so we could sell them later as bigger trees. When I bent down to lift them they wouldn’t budge. I yanked on them. Nothing.
I couldn’t figure out why, since the buckets were so small. The trees were tall, but thin. From the top, nothing indicated they should be so heavy I couldn’t pick them up. I got down on my hands and knees and discovered, to my surprise, that when the roots of the trees had outgrown their container they not only cracked the sides, but had penetrated the landscaping cloth beneath. The roots were buried deep in the ground. No matter how hard I pulled and tugged, they wouldn’t budge.
For years I’d admired their beauty and thought my nearly daily watering is what helped them thrive. I didn’t realize they’d gone off and found their own water! They were feeding themselves off of the dripping of the spigot that was soaking the ground. They didn’t need me to feed them. Sure, my watering supplemented their need for water; but ultimately, they fed themselves.
Just like those willows, you won’t grow with just once a week watering in a bucket the same size in which you were planted.
Are you growing on your own, or is your growth dependent upon someone else?
Could you lead other believers or start a church?
What would happen to your relationship with the Lord?
If you were plopped in the middle of a culture where going to church was illegal, could you still grow in your faith and relationship with the Lord because you knew how to self-feed?
Friend, get yourself some pure milk. Get to the buffet. Learn to study God’s Word, digest it, and abide in it. Do the work to learn how to self-feed and watch your growth take off like weekly sprinkling could never accomplish!
Cory Welch
My wife and I both grew up in Tyler and attended Dallas Baptist University. Christ became my Lord and Savior at a VBS when I was 8 years old and He began to call me into ministry when I was 14. I earned a degree in Business Management from DBU and went on to receive a Masters of Divinity from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. I served at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie from October 2003-October 2006 before I was called to Purcellville Baptist Church in Purcellville, Virginia as Youth Pastor. I officially transitioned into the Executive Pastor role in February 2012 and have received more opportunities to preach and teach as the years have passed. My passion for ministry is to lead people to know Jesus as both Savior and Lord and to discover the purpose for which God created them. My favorite places to be are on the floor playing some variation of “climb on dad” and at an ice cream shop with my kids…partly because the kids like ice cream, mainly because I like ice cream. Natalie and I have been married since February 2008 and have 3 children. 
