There is growing concern about the content of the diet that will be consumed by our Guernsey cows this winter. According to a local farmer speaking in a recent radio interview, the bad weather this spring and summer has damaged the crop that is normally put away to feed the island’s cattle during the winter months. He explained that when a cow is giving milk she is using up the equivalent energy to that used by a human being running a marathon each day! He went on to say that such a runner would expect to eat bananas and could not keep going if their only rations consisted of lettuce. That is what we will be doing to our cows this year, he warned. For this reason they will need expensive supplementary artificial foodstuff.
Bananas not lettuce! That got me thinking. An active life demands a good solid diet. The right kind of nutrition is the key to success in work and sport. Our ancestors knew a thing or two about that. No good Guernsey tomato grower would have wanted to work all day in the hot greenhouses on a lettuce leaf. A decent meal was a must and junk food was pretty much unknown.
The life of faith is a marathon and not a sprint. It requires good nutrition for us to be able to persevere through uphill conditions. Adversity, suffering, discouragements and disappointments all slow the spiritual athlete down. If cows need bananas or their equivalent in the bovine world, believers need a good diet. We should beware the lettuce leaves offered in some parts of the media with their soap opera world view and depressingly superficial game shows. Mutual encouragement, kind words, prayer and worship are all powerful, energy producing soul foods. But nothing compares to the bread of life itself, the Word of God, as a source of nourishment that will sustain us over the long haul. Even better than bananas!
