You have to work to eat. You have to sow seeds. You have to wait. Then you have to reap and gather the fruit, or you will miss the opportunity, and starve. Fruit doesn’t gather itself—you have to go get it.  It’s the same spiritually. A soul doesn’t save itself—you have to go get it.

Rob Rhinehart is a software engineer who grew tired of making and eating food. He felt like shopping, cooking, and eating were a waste of time.

The only reason humans eat, he reasoned, was to survive. So he decided to treat eating like an engineering problem that needed to be resolved. In January 2013 he began an experiment.

He purchased 35 chemicals humans require to live, including potassium gluconate, calcium carbonate, monosodium phosphate, maltodextrin, and olive oil.

He then tinkered with the concoction over a few months until he developed a meal-replacement drink that he claimed a person could survive on indefinitely, saving on time, money, and effort. His discovery eventually became the product sold as Soylent. According to Wikipedia, one reviewer said he was “pleasantly surprised” with the “rich, creamy, and strangely satisfying” flavor, and another likened it to that of a vanilla milkshake with the texture of pancake batter.

Negative reviewers said it tasted “like someone wrung out a dishtowel into a glass” said “my mouth tastes hot and like old cheese”, and one reviewer compared the taste to “homemade nontoxic Play-Doh,”   Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times said he “found Soylent to be a punishingly boring, joyless product.”

Chris Ziegler of The Verge, who experimented with subsisting only on Soylent for almost a month, said that although he liked and “never really tired of the flavor”, he still concluded that “Soylent isn’t living, it’s merely surviving,” and described the apple he ate at the end of that period as “my first meal back from the abyss” and the best he’d ever had in his life.

I think we can all agree that even if there was a substitute for food that could satisfy and sustain us, there is no way to make it more appetizing than real meals.

But there is one substitute for food mentioned in the Bible that is more satisfying than actually eating.

Two Ways to Fuel Fulfillment so You Won’t Starve Spiritually

1. Stir up an Appetite for Obedience

In John chapter 4 we read of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. Then his disciples return with food.

John 4: 31-34 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

In 1943 psychologist, Abraham Maslow postulated a theory that human happiness is pursued according to a “hierarchy of needs,” namely:

1. Physiological: food, water, rest…

2. Safety: security from danger, employment, money…

3. Belonging: friendship, family, intimacy…

4. Esteem: respected by others, self-respect…

5. Self-actualization: creativity, fulfilment…

So, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you require firstly food, and lastly feeling significant and fulfilled in life.

This makes sense to us because when you are hungry or thirsty or cold, you aren’t pondering the meaning of life. You just want a burger and Coke and a warm jacket.

But think about this: have you ever lost your appetite due to a relationship

Read More