What are you feeding your soul?

The book of proverbs is filled with amazing things that can speak to our hearts if we will but let them. It is often difficult to pick out just one verse because so many of them have something to teach us. Today’s verse struck me very powerfully and in some respects convicted me as well. It is possible that you may have read this verse and not sensed the Spirit say anything to you about it. That’s OK! Maybe this one wasn’t for you. At least, not today!

Proverbs spends much of its time comparing the wise person to the foolish one. Within these proverbs we can find a complete and elaborate description of a wise person. By applying these truths to our lives we can become wise. By ignoring them we automatically group ourselves with the fools. In today’s verse we see a description of the spiritual diet and its effect on our lives. A wise person has a spiritual hunger for the truth. A wise person feeds their spirit things of truth.

The opposite is true of the fool; they feed their souls trash. A quick scan of the popular television shows is all the evidence that we need to prove that this is true. The shows that are popular are teaching or feeding our souls anything but truth. Many of them glorify sinful lifestyles or degrade the roles that men and women play in the home and family.

The effect of these shows is that they are feeding trash into the souls of those that are watching them. Anyone that says that these shows are harmless fun are buying into the lie of the enemy and allowing poison and garbage into their lives and the net result is that we are seeing an erosion of marriage and family. It is a very simple equation; if you pump trash into your mind, the things that come out in your marriage and family are also going to be trash.

Instead, we should have a hunger and a passion for the truth. If we will feed truth into our mind, then what comes out in our marriage and family is the fruit of that truth. Feed your spirit truth and fruit of truth comes out. Feed your spirit trash and fruit of trash comes out. We can look into our own lives and see the fruit of our lives and determine whether or not we need to examine the things that we are feeding our spirit.

One of the most difficult decisions that I made in my family was to disconnect the cable television for a couple of years. It was the most unpopular decision that I have ever made and still regularly is challenged by my teenage children. Not all television is trash but sadly there is a lot more trash than there is truth. And it is not just television but also movies and the internet. For us to be counted among the wise we must have a hunger for and search out the truth and the trash must disgust us. Jesus, let us hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Read: 1 Samuel 18:5-19:24; John 8:31-59; Psalm 112:1-10; Proverbs 15:12-14