FAILURE TO THRIVE SYNDROME

A dear friend shared with me today a beautiful understanding of God who is our El Shaddai which means "The Breasted One."

When a baby is born the mother instinctively longs to nurse and nourish her baby. Where does this instinct come from? Of course, it comes from God who is El Shaddai, "the Breasted One." The understanding of this name of God also means, "The God who is Enough." He longs to supply our every need and His wells are inexhaustible. He waits for us to come and feed from Him so we can grow and mature.

1 Peter 2:2 says: "As newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."

Thinking of this I thought of the FAILURE TO THRIVE syndrome where a child has very low weight gain or low increase in weight gain. This is a serious condition for a baby. And yet so many are living in SPIRITUAL Failure to Thrive syndrome. Our El Shaddai waits and longs to pour out of His inexhaustible riches to satisfy and feed us. But often He waits in vain.

We do not come to Him. We do not come to His precious Word to feed. We take a little sip on Sunday when we go to church but starve during the week! We eat three meals a day to satisfy our physical body but except for a tiny crumb here and there, we starve our spirit!

What about our children? We wouldn't think of not feeding them three nutritious meals a day but how often do we feed their spirits? This is the most important part of our children. We must feed them God's Word at least every morning and evening, as we start and end the day. They can't grow "strong in spirit" on anything less (Luke 1:80).

May God save us from the "Failure to Thrive" diagnosis over our lives. And please, may God save mothers from being guilty of putting their children in a position of "Failure to Thrive" because we starve their spiritual beings.

As mothers, we are the feeders of the whole man-body, soul, and spirit.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell