Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. – Isaiah 55:2b
These days, more and more people are into healthy living. They watch what they eat, exercise and stopping bad habits like smoking or drinking too much coffee so that they can live longer. It is all about improving our physical condition, but have you ever thought about what you are feeding your brain?
What we feed our brain is probably more important than the food we feed our bodies. All bad eating does to us is that it makes us fatter and affects some of our bodily functions. Rarely, does the food we eat affect our thinking. What we watch, what we read and, in some cases, partake in, can be more damaging to us than eating that extra slice of chocolate cake.
If you spend a lot of time reading social media or message board posts, for example, the thoughts and opinions of others can be detrimental to us. We can get involved with and swayed by various arguments and ideas presented to us. The idea may be innocent-looking, but it can harm us, especially if it is based on man’s thinking or what the current ideology happens to be.
Anything we hear, read, or see is being digested by our brain. Our minds process the information we are given, and we act accordingly. We sometimes recognise the bad things we are eating, and we reject them but more often than not we fail to do so. For the most part, the bad things we have heard and seen are hard to get rid of, just like the unwanted fat we get on our body from eating too much of the wrong type of food.
When we want to lose body fat, we discipline ourselves, even though it is hard. Disciplining our minds can be harder as we sometimes can’t control our thoughts in the same way we can control what we physically eat. Images and words that we have feasted on, continually changes us and how we react to others. Everything we put into our minds, both good and bad, stays with us and in some ways shapes the person we become.
Feeding your brain with the right food is important. Fasting or abstaining from reading, seeing, watching, or listening to the wrong things is a start. God tells us in the Bible, that we should listen to him and eat what is good. The good things we should be eating for our mental edification should be based on the things of God. We should be reading our Bibles and feasting on the words in them to counteract any of the things we shouldn’t be thinking.
Prayer, worship, and praise are also ways we can feed our brains. In fact, anything we put into our minds that glorify God will benefit us greatly. However, fasting and abstaining from anything that distracts us from the meal God wants us to eat, should be dealt with first. The Bible mentions that we should deny ourselves. Denying ourselves is both a physical and mental exercise. When we stop feeding our brains with all the stuff we shouldn’t be and start eating the things of God, we not only improve our minds, but we also improve our faith and soul.
Originally published July 2019