You Are What You Eat

As we go through this holiday season, we are surrounded by large feasts for Thanksgiving and the annual treats around Christmas and New Year’s. I am sure you have heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” The proverbial saying is the notion that to be fit and healthy, you need to eat good food.

‘You are what you eat’ has come to into the English language by quite a meandering route. In 1826, the French lawyer Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, in Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante: “Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.”

[Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are]. In an essay titled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, 1863/4, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wrote: “Der Mensch ist, was er ißt.” [Man is what he eats]

Neither Brillat-Savarin nor Feuerbach meant their quotations to be taken literally (that would be rather messy). They stated that the food one eats affects one’s state of mind and health. Although they coined French and German variants of ‘you are what you eat,’ the phrase didn’t migrate into other languages and wasn’t used in English until decades later.

So, what does this have to do with your faith? Let’s change the phrase to “You are what you consume” or “You are what you surround yourself with.” How is your faith and your walk with God affected if you surround yourself with sinful temptations? Will you tend to slip more and go away from what you know is the right thing to do? If you surround yourself with people who treat others badly, will your behavior change? On the flip side, if you start your day reading your Bible or devotionals, how will your faith be affected, and will it show through in your actions?

I have met many people who say they are very religious but do not feel they need to go to church to have a strong faith. I am not saying they are wrong, but I think if they surround themselves with other Christians through church and Bible studies, they can grow their faith even more. They are limiting their growth based on what they can do on their own. Having that support team around you raises your potential.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

If you isolate yourself from the word of Christ because of surrounding yourself with all the other distractions of the world, your faith will not grow. We need to feed our faith just as we need to give seeds what they need to grow to be able to have a good harvest.  John 4:14 says “Do we nurture, feed, water, and take care of what and where the seed was planted, or do we deprive the soil of what it needs?” We are what we eat; we are what we surround ourselves with. Do we give our faith what it needs to grow or deprive it?

Enjoy the holiday season and the treats that come with it. Don’t lose focus on Christ and the celebration of His birth. Surround yourself with everything that will bring you closer to God instead of the world’s distractions pulling you away from Him.

Merry Christmas, and may God bless you every day!