Gluten-Free Christianity
Every January Husband and I do a Daniel
Fast—no meat, fish, dairy, coffee, sugar, alcohol, or gluten for
31 days. Our goal is to develop a pattern of biblical
self-control and obedience through nutrition. (The
Daniel Fast, Susan Gregory 2015) Dropping those extra
holiday pounds is also a motivating bonus.
Usually I am counting down the days, eager to
resume a less-regimented pattern of eating. As the chief cook
and bottle-washer in our household, there are only so many
variations of beans, brown rice, and vegetables in my
repertoire. Plus, I’ve never made peace with tofu.
This year was different. When February 1st
rolled around we decided to remain gluten-free vegetarians for
awhile. I don’t miss the animal proteins or tuna fish. My issue
is gluten. I love Wonder Bread!
Grocery stores are full of gluten-free
alternatives these days: vegetable pasta, bread so nutrient-rich
it’s almost black, cauliflower pizza crust. None of them come
close to the taste of white bread slathered with peanut butter
and gooey strawberry jam.
The problem according to my nutritionist is
that white bread barely counts as a grain at all. The reason it
is so yummy is that the “healthy” has been drained out of it.
Vitamins and minerals were abandoned somewhere in the processing
plant. Consequently, the finished product isn’t as wholesome as
we’d like to pretend when making school lunches and late night
sandwiches.
Gluten-free eating has caused me to
speculate… how many of us are looking for a “white bread”
relationship with God?
We show up at church every Sunday (except
when the Seahawks are playing an early game in November or
December.) We pray
before meals and at bedtime. Occasionally we even read a few
chapters in the Bible and feel pretty good about ourselves for
making the effort. Then we sit back and wait for God to notice
our nutrient-rich spiritual lives.
God wants to feed us much better than that.
The author of Hebrews wrote this stinging
reproach to people who have not spiritually matured beyond PB&J
on white bread:
“I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it
across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not
listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet
here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over
the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk,
when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for
beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the
mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.”
(Heb 5:11-14 MSG)
God wants a nutrient-rich relationship with each one of us. He’s
waiting to see the sermons, pre-meal prayers, and scripture
incorporated into who we are and everything we do.
The evidence of spiritual maturity isn’t church attendance,
prayers said by rote, and reading the Bible. God is hoping to
see us act
differently based on good, sound, scriptural Sunday messages. He
wants us to reach out to Him with prayers that are generated
from our hearts as each day’s challenges and joys appear. And He
wants us to experience scripture as a living, breathing document
that is filled with answers to our deepest questions and hope
amidst our biggest disappointments.
How can we know if we are nutrient-rich Christians? The writer
of Hebrews suggests that our maturity is evidenced by knowing
right from wrong and choosing to do what is right.
White bread tastes good, but the whole-grain-nutty-brown stuff
does a much better job.