"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."
Back in October, when I turned 30, I was obsessed with figuring out integral bread. Integral refers to bread made with the entire grain once threshed. The mineral-rich components still present, the hydration still present, and therefore the energy from the light of the sun still present. Integral. Lacking nothing. In bread, crushed grain is brought to life in order to nourish. This is the reason breaking bread has become a significant rendering of faith in our home.
Here is today's daily bread. Isn't it a Good Thing? Every offering rendered is first a gift to us. How He lavishes! Isn't it revealing that no formula I researched could achieve the goodness that staying present to the Holy Spirit offers? Isn't it revealing that this particular part of the Lord's Prayer is the part that confounds theologians because of their inability to let Jesus reconcile the body along with the mind and spirit? Isn't it fascinating how we've created religous thinking around food by recipes? Things totally changed (no anxiety--where I acknowledge His goodness instead of trying to control it) when I acknowledged the presence of the Spirit in my body and kitchen.
Fullness is more than a stomach full of matter. The needs of the body are as mysterious as the composition of a living food. An
I've been aware of the shadow truths for a while, but I did not understand the meaning behind them and the clarity they provide because of my blindness caused by idols. Lets find a way to use our lungs for love and not the shadows.
It was He who planted the desire to learn this. I know this is true.
Every desire is planted by Him, for Him. The single reason we hunger, thirst, and yearn--is because He planted eternity within.
With the blindness I had, it became about the thing. Religion does this to compensate for perceived emptiness.
What He revealed during that week that He asked me to release my grip on "the thing", was the simple reality that all desire applied to the Living Word is fulfilling.
They make it super complex and theological. The Word Lives among us. EAT HIM.
We already have the knowledge that real food is living, fake food is dead. We already know that knowing information and being completely transformed in appetite are two different things. Our pursuit is the only difference.
The finished sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus means birth. To me, now that means I'm not obligated to act as an orphan.
This morning I noticed one of my jars for grain had the wrong tare weight. This meant that every time I filled the jar, no matter how much I put in, I overpaid by $1.50. To attend to what is happening with perspective is to eat Bread. My attention is required to ingest what He offers. This particular Bread offered insight as to why I had been compensating (overspending) for perceived lack.
To be fully present to the Living Word is to constantly evaluate my faith using every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. When I hear it, now I pursue it. I'm just now learning how to chew it. Digesting it and letting it fuel me makes it who I am. A daughter of God with Christ's blood in my veins.
There is no system. Systems are a product of religion. There is only the hunger planted in you in order to seek first. The most radical thing happened to me when I placed more value on receioving and writing out every Word that came into me in the middle of temptation, than I did my physical appetite. Because that's where I would ordinarily have gone. He trained my heart to fuel on Him so that every other desire would be in order, and glorify Him through my thoughts, my love for Him and others, and my physical actions. This is where the mind, the body and the spirit are joined and operate at peak; integrity only comes by full inhabiting of Christ. I found that my physical appetite and how I submitted it (or not)had everything to do with my identity as His, my capacity to release provision and physical shape to Him. Render to God. In-ness. Intimacy has to do with the body. Choose life, that you and your descendants may live. My capacity to receive His wisdom depended on my willingness to apply my mind to His thoughts.
Some of the revelations through shadow that opened my eyes to Substance are as follows:
Separation is the trademark that disintegrates a faith and disintegrates a being.
Theology is to faith
what
Nutrition science is to healthy eating
information and religion does not increase reality
we don't need professionals, we need engaged attention
"doctrine" has done to faith
what "modern medicine" has done to a person's ability to sense what is going on in her own body
Experiencing the mystery of His fullness and Goodness is fullest in faith, not information.
"all things work together"
integral foods serve one another for assimilation in the same way the spirit is fueled by the entire Word, not just the parts that look appetizing.
indulgence/selfishness feeds idols like sugar feeds cancer
submission to Christ naturally detoxifies selfishness like vegetables naturally detoxify sickness and dead waste
disintegrated communications dull the senses for authentic relationship like disintegrated foods dull a discerning palate
being transformed is not a list of do's and don'ts. That's the mark of religion.
this is not only the case for foods, but for Integral Truth.
Resistance to submitting my body was a refusal of my full inheritance of freedom in it. Christ does not take authority of anything I do not submit to Him.
Consuming disintegrated sugars (isolated) numbs the senses to the innate sweetness of integral foods (a carrot supposedly contains 7 grams of sugar, although I cannot fathom why that matters). Consumption of disintegrated connection--constant, low frequency hum numbs the mind to the ability to hear God's voice.
Integral foods provide optimal energy for the glorification of God through a human's capacity to serve Him with their energy. Withholding the appetite from Him for reasons of self indulgence provides
His gifts=my offering: an engaged entire being presence
In the same way that food religions are all about lingo, name dropping and a badge you flash ("paleo", "keto", "whole30" "vegan") have no power for restraining sensual indulgences, religious "righteousness" and outer habits or the denomination affiliation will not change the inner person or increase faith. The difference is an integral (mind body and spirit) connection to Life, that will make a person alive.
My sense of incompleteness drives me to idols. Feeding on Christ completes, fills and naturally overflows. Integral faith is alive and lacks nothing. Not even for the body.
Integrity means my whole being in agreement, by faith through Jesus Christ.
Disintegration is the characteristic of death. Disintegrated connections (artificial community), covenants (marriage void of intimacy), foods (separated from themselves or coated in death substance/deception).
Holiness is the fact of Christ's blood in me, making me an heir who is
at ease
whole
at home
aware and present
complete
integrated
unafraid
unbothered by offense
patient
joyful
generous
Faith is my agreement with this in my entire self.
In the same way that what I eat affects my physical strength, everything I consume/feed on mentally and spiritually affects the capacity to bear this truth--my faith.
If my body belongs to Him, I am confident
it is cared for by Him
it's shape is His business
I cannot carry shame or anxiety
there is no self-indulgence (unconfronted)
there is pleasure
there is freedom
all healing is his responsibility
Overconsumption is a faith problem.
The delight of a parent is to satisfy with good things.
In the same way witnessing sensations gives us wisdom about foods that cause disease, we can notice attitudes and selfishness that sprouts from what we are feeding on. This is especially noticeable in children upon mental feeding on media (disintegrated forms of communication embedded with disease and death matter)
Incomplete ingestibles reflect incomplete knowledge
Complete nourishment reflect a complete Creator.
If we will be judged for deeds done while in the body, food isn't the main thing, intimacy is. But the desire and appetite reflect the focus of our confidence. The fuel provided to the body naturally determine the competence and capacity for movement. The fuel for the mind and spirit complete this shadow- Jesus, the substance and object of our cravings.
FATHER MIND BRAIN
SON BODY HEART
SPIRIT SPIRIT LUNGS
Full inheritance is all beings operating in identity as integrated, healthy and whole. Aligned with purpose, not desire. You know by seeing that a brain a heart and two lungs don't live unless all three are online. This is shadow truth. Faith is the substance superseding visible truth. At first I was amazed at how well illustrated this is in the body, and as my faith grew I realized the truth of it as an invitation to faith. We live by faith, not by sight.
Thoughts- life or death
Connections- life or death
Foods- life or death
I started to notice correlations between the affairs of spiritual health and physical.
supplements remind me of verse images on instagram
fast food reminds me of devotionals
healthy eating plans remind me of preconceived fasts and spiritual disciplines
vegetarians who eat no vegetables are like "Christians" who eat no Jesus
sugar is like self indulgence-they feed death
taking in vegetables increases the appetite for life and broadens the diversity of it, like taking in the Word of God creates the appetite for full assimilation of all He has said and is saying
the tastebuds and palate are transformed to discern goodness in the same way the heart and mind are trained to love God Himself and all people because of His mercy
the way vegetables nourish is mystery, unquantifiable in the same way that the Word supplies needs we know and those we don't.
I know I am probably repeating myself, but the gospel is so simple that from one letter to another, Paul repeats the same concepts in different words. From day to day, one Word to the next, my spirit, mind and body are nourished, because the Word itself is an integral feast-diverse, containing the same basic components yet nourishing in its own way.
This morning it occurred to me--we are made with mouths that speak, words that create, minds who determine, bodies that move, language both oral and written, emotions that feel...all of these are ways we are imago dei. Don't forget, render unto God.
The one thing that God does not have that we do...is hunger. Need. Emptiness.
That's worth contemplating. Why do we have one thing He doesn't if we are made in His image?
Relationship. As the progenitor of all that is, He didn't need us to feel complete but He wanted to share His fullness and love. In order that we experience this though, we needed a way to be called back, rather than "self-sufficient". That one thing that Satan tempted Eve with is the one thing that God created so she could taste, sense His actual goodness.
I hear a lot of speculation about food and faith. Some would rather they not be interrelated. It causes controversy--"who are you to judge my eating? The law is abolished. There are no rules." This is true.
Another friend commented once: "I wonder why God made us need to eat? It would be so much easier if we didn't need to!"
Because He made me the type of mind that digs for roots, He opened my ears and I started actively listening for the echoes of what's been done in food, in order to understand why my faith seemed so shallow.
After Israel was freed from slavery, God establishes what we call The Ten Commandments through Moses. The penalties they paid when they offered their attention to unholiness were sacrifices of their food. Do you see? If I wholly belong to Him, He gives me all that I need. I can hear Him, I gave this to you! Do you see? I'm not taking it to hurt you, I'm taking it to remind you that I am all you need! You don't NEED to covet. Yes, work is pleasure but you don't NEED to work on the 7th day. You don't NEED to offer yourselves to other "gods". You don't NEED to take each others things. You don't NEED to disrespect your authority. You don't NEED to make up stories about each other.
Because I satisfy all your NEED. Our food is our most basic of needs. I firmly believe that the entire reason we are made with a need to physically consume and eliminate is only the shadow of the real way that God designed us with need. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood naturally detoxifies the spirits of pride, selfishness, religion. Without our conscious involvement, the body will rid itself of toxins and death, but only if it is taking in life and not death. Religious consumption of healthy foods alone might "heal" the body, but if full integrity of being is the goal, religious eating habits do not complete a person any more than religious spiritual disciplines.
It is not lost on me that all of these words I am telling you are like a processed natural foods bar. Yes, it can offer your mind with processed wisdom, but my words to you are not Life Himself. My words may create, because my Father made me with words and gave me gifts and prophecies that have transformed me, but my transformation does NOT convert anyone else...In the same way that admiring our eating habits from afar did not transform the eating habits of anyone following my old instagram account, reading my blog is secondhand. Transformation cannot happen secondhand, not in the body, not in the mind, not in the spirit. Personally applying direct, engaged attention to Life Himself as the Integral Source.
Just as I had hoped to inspire others to feel better physically by consuming more vegetables, even if I were with you three times a week, telling you what to buy at the grocery store, I cannot inhabit you. And just as I can give a loaf of bread to a friend for her friendship, pleasure, nourishment and filling, her ability to make it herself does not come with the eating of the bread made here in my home. I invite you to see this post as one loaf, a taste of what He's offering in abundance. Everything that you consume is a matter of a mental directive. He made you with authority of the mind over the other parts, let it draw you to Christ Himself. I confess that I had made it about the food. But what I found as I've offered and rendered my whole self is that food comes along, it does not lead the way. It resolves every question of provision, thus relieving fear of generosity. Every part of myself that I render to His dwelling becomes the moon--the bride--reflecting the glory of the Son. This is why I see so much religion and fear around food and what it means...it is the very need that God created all Good Things, for our pleasure, for wisdom, for fullness in Him.
What is it about manna? What is it about the Bread of Life? What is it about the Living Water? What is it about the Light?
If we are not fully sated in Christ, the word reconciled meaning complete and at home, we will desire other. Our problems don't come from other. They are manifestations of the shadows we are chasing. I remember being fully religious in my pursuit of healing from trauma. I pursued yoga teachings, somatic therapies, real foods, physical appearance...from a place of emptiness and unbelief that all I really needed was Jesus Christ. My full healing is not in eating, drinking and moving, it is fully in the One who made all I need to eat, my body, my spirit and my mind.
It has become abundantly clear to me that everything that I see is a shadow, that reality is hidden in Christ. In order to sense and perceive the Way, the Truth and the Life I have to let my spirit, mind and body be immersed, inhabited, full and not absent-minded.
Doesn't it make sense that what He's given is life?
Back in October, when I turned 30, I was obsessed with figuring out integral bread. Integral refers to bread made with the entire grain once threshed. The mineral-rich components still present, the hydration still present, and therefore the energy from the light of the sun still present. Integral. Lacking nothing. In bread, crushed grain is brought to life in order to nourish. This is the reason breaking bread has become a significant rendering of faith in our home.
Here is today's daily bread. Isn't it a Good Thing? Every offering rendered is first a gift to us. How He lavishes! Isn't it revealing that no formula I researched could achieve the goodness that staying present to the Holy Spirit offers? Isn't it revealing that this particular part of the Lord's Prayer is the part that confounds theologians because of their inability to let Jesus reconcile the body along with the mind and spirit? Isn't it fascinating how we've created religous thinking around food by recipes? Things totally changed (no anxiety--where I acknowledge His goodness instead of trying to control it) when I acknowledged the presence of the Spirit in my body and kitchen. Fullness is more than a stomach full of matter. The needs of the body are as mysterious as the composition of a living food. An
I've been aware of the shadow truths for a while, but I did not understand the meaning behind them and the clarity they provide because of my blindness caused by idols. Lets find a way to use our lungs for love and not the shadows.
It was He who planted the desire to learn this. I know this is true.
Every desire is planted by Him, for Him. The single reason we hunger, thirst, and yearn--is because He planted eternity within.
With the blindness I had, it became about the thing. Religion does this to compensate for perceived emptiness.
What He revealed during that week that He asked me to release my grip on "the thing", was the simple reality that all desire applied to the Living Word is fulfilling.
They make it super complex and theological. The Word Lives among us. EAT HIM.
We already have the knowledge that real food is living, fake food is dead. We already know that knowing information and being completely transformed in appetite are two different things. Our pursuit is the only difference.
The finished sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus means birth. To me, now that means I'm not obligated to act as an orphan.
This morning I noticed one of my jars for grain had the wrong tare weight. This meant that every time I filled the jar, no matter how much I put in, I overpaid by $1.50. To attend to what is happening with perspective is to eat Bread. My attention is required to ingest what He offers. This particular Bread offered insight as to why I had been compensating (overspending) for perceived lack.
To be fully present to the Living Word is to constantly evaluate my faith using every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. When I hear it, now I pursue it. I'm just now learning how to chew it. Digesting it and letting it fuel me makes it who I am. A daughter of God with Christ's blood in my veins.
There is no system. Systems are a product of religion. There is only the hunger planted in you in order to seek first. The most radical thing happened to me when I placed more value on receioving and writing out every Word that came into me in the middle of temptation, than I did my physical appetite. Because that's where I would ordinarily have gone. He trained my heart to fuel on Him so that every other desire would be in order, and glorify Him through my thoughts, my love for Him and others, and my physical actions. This is where the mind, the body and the spirit are joined and operate at peak; integrity only comes by full inhabiting of Christ. I found that my physical appetite and how I submitted it (or not)had everything to do with my identity as His, my capacity to release provision and physical shape to Him. Render to God. In-ness. Intimacy has to do with the body. Choose life, that you and your descendants may live. My capacity to receive His wisdom depended on my willingness to apply my mind to His thoughts.
Some of the revelations through shadow that opened my eyes to Substance are as follows:
Separation is the trademark that disintegrates a faith and disintegrates a being.
Theology is to faith
what
Nutrition science is to healthy eating
information and religion does not increase reality
we don't need professionals, we need engaged attention
"doctrine" has done to faith
what "modern medicine" has done to a person's ability to sense what is going on in her own body
Experiencing the mystery of His fullness and Goodness is fullest in faith, not information.
"all things work together"
integral foods serve one another for assimilation in the same way the spirit is fueled by the entire Word, not just the parts that look appetizing.
indulgence/selfishness feeds idols like sugar feeds cancer
submission to Christ naturally detoxifies selfishness like vegetables naturally detoxify sickness and dead waste
disintegrated communications dull the senses for authentic relationship like disintegrated foods dull a discerning palate
being transformed is not a list of do's and don'ts. That's the mark of religion.
this is not only the case for foods, but for Integral Truth.
Resistance to submitting my body was a refusal of my full inheritance of freedom in it. Christ does not take authority of anything I do not submit to Him.
Consuming disintegrated sugars (isolated) numbs the senses to the innate sweetness of integral foods (a carrot supposedly contains 7 grams of sugar, although I cannot fathom why that matters). Consumption of disintegrated connection--constant, low frequency hum numbs the mind to the ability to hear God's voice.
Integral foods provide optimal energy for the glorification of God through a human's capacity to serve Him with their energy. Withholding the appetite from Him for reasons of self indulgence provides
His gifts=my offering: an engaged entire being presence
In the same way that food religions are all about lingo, name dropping and a badge you flash ("paleo", "keto", "whole30" "vegan") have no power for restraining sensual indulgences, religious "righteousness" and outer habits or the denomination affiliation will not change the inner person or increase faith. The difference is an integral (mind body and spirit) connection to Life, that will make a person alive.
My sense of incompleteness drives me to idols. Feeding on Christ completes, fills and naturally overflows. Integral faith is alive and lacks nothing. Not even for the body.
Integrity means my whole being in agreement, by faith through Jesus Christ.
Disintegration is the characteristic of death. Disintegrated connections (artificial community), covenants (marriage void of intimacy), foods (separated from themselves or coated in death substance/deception).
Holiness is the fact of Christ's blood in me, making me an heir who is
at ease
whole
at home
aware and present
complete
integrated
unafraid
unbothered by offense
patient
joyful
generous
Faith is my agreement with this in my entire self.
In the same way that what I eat affects my physical strength, everything I consume/feed on mentally and spiritually affects the capacity to bear this truth--my faith.
If my body belongs to Him, I am confident
it is cared for by Him
it's shape is His business
I cannot carry shame or anxiety
there is no self-indulgence (unconfronted)
there is pleasure
there is freedom
all healing is his responsibility
Overconsumption is a faith problem.
The delight of a parent is to satisfy with good things.
In the same way witnessing sensations gives us wisdom about foods that cause disease, we can notice attitudes and selfishness that sprouts from what we are feeding on. This is especially noticeable in children upon mental feeding on media (disintegrated forms of communication embedded with disease and death matter)
Incomplete ingestibles reflect incomplete knowledge
Complete nourishment reflect a complete Creator.
If we will be judged for deeds done while in the body, food isn't the main thing, intimacy is. But the desire and appetite reflect the focus of our confidence. The fuel provided to the body naturally determine the competence and capacity for movement. The fuel for the mind and spirit complete this shadow- Jesus, the substance and object of our cravings.
FATHER MIND BRAIN
SON BODY HEART
SPIRIT SPIRIT LUNGS
Full inheritance is all beings operating in identity as integrated, healthy and whole. Aligned with purpose, not desire. You know by seeing that a brain a heart and two lungs don't live unless all three are online. This is shadow truth. Faith is the substance superseding visible truth. At first I was amazed at how well illustrated this is in the body, and as my faith grew I realized the truth of it as an invitation to faith. We live by faith, not by sight.
Thoughts- life or death
Connections- life or death
Foods- life or death
I started to notice correlations between the affairs of spiritual health and physical.
supplements remind me of verse images on instagram
fast food reminds me of devotionals
healthy eating plans remind me of preconceived fasts and spiritual disciplines
vegetarians who eat no vegetables are like "Christians" who eat no Jesus
sugar is like self indulgence-they feed death
taking in vegetables increases the appetite for life and broadens the diversity of it, like taking in the Word of God creates the appetite for full assimilation of all He has said and is saying
the tastebuds and palate are transformed to discern goodness in the same way the heart and mind are trained to love God Himself and all people because of His mercy
the way vegetables nourish is mystery, unquantifiable in the same way that the Word supplies needs we know and those we don't.
I know I am probably repeating myself, but the gospel is so simple that from one letter to another, Paul repeats the same concepts in different words. From day to day, one Word to the next, my spirit, mind and body are nourished, because the Word itself is an integral feast-diverse, containing the same basic components yet nourishing in its own way.
This morning it occurred to me--we are made with mouths that speak, words that create, minds who determine, bodies that move, language both oral and written, emotions that feel...all of these are ways we are imago dei. Don't forget, render unto God.
The one thing that God does not have that we do...is hunger. Need. Emptiness.
That's worth contemplating. Why do we have one thing He doesn't if we are made in His image?
Relationship. As the progenitor of all that is, He didn't need us to feel complete but He wanted to share His fullness and love. In order that we experience this though, we needed a way to be called back, rather than "self-sufficient". That one thing that Satan tempted Eve with is the one thing that God created so she could taste, sense His actual goodness.
I hear a lot of speculation about food and faith. Some would rather they not be interrelated. It causes controversy--"who are you to judge my eating? The law is abolished. There are no rules." This is true.
Another friend commented once: "I wonder why God made us need to eat? It would be so much easier if we didn't need to!"
Because He made me the type of mind that digs for roots, He opened my ears and I started actively listening for the echoes of what's been done in food, in order to understand why my faith seemed so shallow.
After Israel was freed from slavery, God establishes what we call The Ten Commandments through Moses. The penalties they paid when they offered their attention to unholiness were sacrifices of their food. Do you see? If I wholly belong to Him, He gives me all that I need. I can hear Him, I gave this to you! Do you see? I'm not taking it to hurt you, I'm taking it to remind you that I am all you need! You don't NEED to covet. Yes, work is pleasure but you don't NEED to work on the 7th day. You don't NEED to offer yourselves to other "gods". You don't NEED to take each others things. You don't NEED to disrespect your authority. You don't NEED to make up stories about each other.
Because I satisfy all your NEED. Our food is our most basic of needs. I firmly believe that the entire reason we are made with a need to physically consume and eliminate is only the shadow of the real way that God designed us with need. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood naturally detoxifies the spirits of pride, selfishness, religion. Without our conscious involvement, the body will rid itself of toxins and death, but only if it is taking in life and not death. Religious consumption of healthy foods alone might "heal" the body, but if full integrity of being is the goal, religious eating habits do not complete a person any more than religious spiritual disciplines.
It is not lost on me that all of these words I am telling you are like a processed natural foods bar. Yes, it can offer your mind with processed wisdom, but my words to you are not Life Himself. My words may create, because my Father made me with words and gave me gifts and prophecies that have transformed me, but my transformation does NOT convert anyone else...In the same way that admiring our eating habits from afar did not transform the eating habits of anyone following my old instagram account, reading my blog is secondhand. Transformation cannot happen secondhand, not in the body, not in the mind, not in the spirit. Personally applying direct, engaged attention to Life Himself as the Integral Source.
Just as I had hoped to inspire others to feel better physically by consuming more vegetables, even if I were with you three times a week, telling you what to buy at the grocery store, I cannot inhabit you. And just as I can give a loaf of bread to a friend for her friendship, pleasure, nourishment and filling, her ability to make it herself does not come with the eating of the bread made here in my home. I invite you to see this post as one loaf, a taste of what He's offering in abundance. Everything that you consume is a matter of a mental directive. He made you with authority of the mind over the other parts, let it draw you to Christ Himself. I confess that I had made it about the food. But what I found as I've offered and rendered my whole self is that food comes along, it does not lead the way. It resolves every question of provision, thus relieving fear of generosity. Every part of myself that I render to His dwelling becomes the moon--the bride--reflecting the glory of the Son. This is why I see so much religion and fear around food and what it means...it is the very need that God created all Good Things, for our pleasure, for wisdom, for fullness in Him.
What is it about manna? What is it about the Bread of Life? What is it about the Living Water? What is it about the Light?
If we are not fully sated in Christ, the word reconciled meaning complete and at home, we will desire other. Our problems don't come from other. They are manifestations of the shadows we are chasing. I remember being fully religious in my pursuit of healing from trauma. I pursued yoga teachings, somatic therapies, real foods, physical appearance...from a place of emptiness and unbelief that all I really needed was Jesus Christ. My full healing is not in eating, drinking and moving, it is fully in the One who made all I need to eat, my body, my spirit and my mind.
It has become abundantly clear to me that everything that I see is a shadow, that reality is hidden in Christ. In order to sense and perceive the Way, the Truth and the Life I have to let my spirit, mind and body be immersed, inhabited, full and not absent-minded.
Doesn't it make sense that what He's given is life?
If you find honey, eat just enough—
too much of it, and you will vomit. Proverbs 25:16
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