DRAWN BY GOD
I Kings 19:4-8; John 6:35, 41-51

No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me;
and I will raise that person up on the last day.


I want to tell you a story of a real man named Sadhu Sundar Singh, who was born in India in 1889. At the age of 15, he converted to Christianity after having a vision of Jesus. His father threw him a farewell party and then kicked him out of the family. It was Sundar's life work to travel around distributing gospels to people. He came upon some non-Christians on the train and offered a man a copy of John's gospel. The man took it, tore it into pieces in anger and threw the pieces out of the window. That seemed the end. But it so happened, in the provident of God, there was a man anxiously seeking the truth walking along the train tracks that very day, and he picked up as he walked along, a little bit of paper. In his own language it read, “The Bread of Life.” He did not know what it meant so he began to ask of his friends.

One of them said, “I can tell you; it is out of the Christian Book. You must not read it or you will be defiled.“ The man thought for a moment and said, “I want to read a copy of the book that contains that beautiful phrase!” and he bought a copy of the New Testament. He was shown where the sentence occurred—our Lord's words “I am the Bread of Life”; and as he studied the Gospel, the light flooded into his heart. He came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he became a preacher of the gospel. That little bit of paper through God's Spirit was indeed the Bread of Life to him, satisfying his deepest need (Adapted from Stephen Olford. Basics for Believers, 2003, pp 112-13).

Sundar Singh, it seems to me, was drawn by God for a very special purpose in spreading Truth. A holy encounter with God, God's angels, or Jesus himself happens over and over again in the bible and behind all the action is God drawing his people closer to him all the time.

Elijah was drawn by God to eat the bread of life even as the hunted prophet prayed for his own death. Under the shady, shaggy broom tree he fell asleep and either had a dream or awoke to the touch of an angel instructing him to, “Get up and eat.” His daily bread is provided near his head. He eats and falls back to sleep. Once more the words, “Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you.” Elijah does as he is told. We don't know if Elijah is still worried that Jezebel was in pursuit of his life or not. What we do know is that after the meal of bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water, he got up and went in the strength of that food for forty days and nights Horeb, the mount of God.

Long before Jesus, you see, God was in the business of providing bread for the journey and food for the soul. God could draw the hearts of even those who though they were once zealous for the Lord but later, at the end of the day, would rather die than face another day. God, our Father and Creator, draws his children closer through life-giving bread—quite unlike Sundar's father who sent the boy packing when he gave his life to the Lord.

Food has always been a big draw for people. In ancient times just about every decision, every business transaction, and every religious ritual was centered around food. How many stories in the bible can you name that have food as one of its central characters? You can only get as far as Chapter 3 in Genesis before food—a certain fruit—leads the world's first eviction notice. Food is intended to be for our good, yet when we look around today, many people in our country have turned our daily bread for sustenance into an hourly bread, an addiction. Obesity is epidemic among children and adults alike. The weight-loss industry is a $40 billion business in this country.


In 2004, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranked obesity as the number one health threat facing America. Obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually1 and costs nearly $122.9 billion.2
These statistics lead me to ask, What is it that we are so hungry for? What do we hear ourselves and others saying? “I'm so hungry; I can't seem to get enough to eat.”

It's pretty common knowledge that many people are overweight because they eat the wrong foods—and lots of it. Others eat to swallow their pain; some find their weight as a way to protect themselves from anyone or anything that might get too close to them.

We're a hungry people; we stay hungry because we do not feast on the right food. Yes, we need to make deposits in our bodies of the seven food groups for our physical health, but I think that we are still starving and foraging for food because we do not eat the Bread of Life.

I was thinking about the food chart and I began to convert it into a spiritual food chart. Try to imagine with me as I describe this spiritual food pyramid.

At the base of the pyramid are three blocks. One is “bread of life”; the next is “living water”; and the third is “new birth.” In the second tier there are two blocks. One is filled with “The Word” and the other is filled with “Prayer.” At the top of the pyramid is “Worship.” As with the food pyramid, I have assigned suggested servings of each block in the spiritual pyramid.

Worship=1 large serving on Sundays; mini servings on weekdays in the midst of other moments or specially set aside. (Psalm 100:4; Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.)
The Word: I recommend at least two servings per day, one in the morning and one in the evening so as to begin and end the day with God filling your soul. (Matthew 4:4—a man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.)
Prayer = all day long—at least once before every meal and at bedtime, and any time in between (I Thessalonians 5:17).
Born Anew= first thing every morning. (John 3) Remember that Jesus taught Nicodemus that if he wanted see the kingdom of God he would have to be born from above.
Living Water=8 times a day. (John 4) Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that if she knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to her, 'Give me a drink,' she would have asked him and he would have given her living water.)
Bread of Life=all day long; repeat as often as necessary. “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” (John 6:50).

Unlike the temporary bread and water, when we eat a balanced spiritual food diet, we cannot overeat. We will grow, that is true, not around our middles but in the middle of our being—the heart and soul of who God creates and calls us to be.

Many things in our world draw us in, but they are not always the right things or good things. It is a test of will for humanity has a tendency to resist the holy things. But it's all very logical, you know. If we want to have a healthy body, we have to feed it the good things, the right things so that it can function well and allow us the strength and freedom to be all that we can be.

So if we extend the metaphor, if we want to have a healthy spirit, we must also feed our spirits with the right and good things. Jesus is the one thing, the holy thing that can fill all our spiritual needs. He is the bread of life that God provides for the whole of our lives, both on temporal and eternal.

The Good News today my friends is that God provides the true Bread of Life—all that we need to survive and thrive in today's famished world. In II Peter 3 Peter writes, the Lord does not want any of us to perish...EVER.

We have been given this Bread of Life so that we may have eternal life, drawn by God's love for us through those beautiful gates we are supposed to enter with thanksgiving. When we eat of this bread we will be spiritually filled up. Gone is the desire to eat more manna that still leaves us hungering for who knows what, and come to us is the Way to take a 40-day journey through any wilderness to the mount of God. We will survive it because God is drawing us closer with each new day—it matters not how many Jezebels seek our demise; it's like the wind and the waves, no matter how wild a ride it gets to be, cast your Jesus bread upon the waters and just see what happens.

The journey will not be too much for us when we eat the True bread of Life that God has sent directly from heaven to feed us. Forget about eating pounds of fruitless fear; stop drinking gallons of worry, anger, vengeance or apathy. We must get up and eat this Bread of Life, otherwise the journey will be too much for us. And do not worry about having enough for the journey. We've already seen what Jesus can do with five loaves and two fishes.

Eat well of the Lord today and every day, my friends, for God is drawing us nearer by the hour. Amen.

August 9, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise