Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
While every holiday has food associated with it, none in my tradition is so taste-focused as Thanksgiving. We gather every year with family not for the games though we sometimes play games, and not for conversation though we always have good conversation, but for the dinner. And the years when we couldn’t gather with family, we made the meal ourselves and invited friends to join us. And even then, it was the meal to which people are invited.
Have you tasted life with God yet? Do you crave His presence like you crave the turkey or pie on Thanksgiving? Once you’ve tasted life with Him, you won’t want any other spiritual food. In fact, Peter calls us to not just enjoy a taste of God, but to continue to nourish ourselves with “pure spiritual milk”. When our kids were infants and nursing, we knew the MINUTE they wanted milk. It seemed they couldn’t stand a minute without it when they were craving it.
But what does this mean for us? We get bored with milk when that’s all we eat. So while we are to crave the milk in the beginning, Paul says that we should get beyond that to “spiritual meat” as soon as possible. If you are bored with your spirituality, then push yourself to grow. Read something deeper, pray differently, seek new spiritual practices. Or follow Peter’s suggestion and work to get rid of malice (“evil intent”), deceit (lying, even little ones), hypocrisy (pretending to be someone you aren’t), envy (wanting more than you have), and slander (putting another person down). That may be enough hard work to put some flavor back into your “spiritual milk”.
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