Two days ago, my second granddaughter, Naomi, was born.  It’s so fun watching a newborn!  She wiggles and stretches, arches and curls.  Her face scrunches, then she lifts her eyelids open by pulling up all the way from her scalp.  Her little mouth smirks and grimaces and yawns.  But brush her cheek, and automatically, that head turns and pursed lips open in search of that wonderful source of nourishment, Mom’s breast.  And when she’s actually hungry?  “Waaaaaahhhh!  I want my milk and I want it NOW!”  Once she’s latched on, her obvious satisfaction with her sustenance is amply attested to by her many little pleased sighs as she swallows.  Unlike her sister, who had great difficulty nursing, Naomi gives all the indications of being a champion at it.

Baby’s are designed to want to nurse, and to eagerly desire Mom’s milk.   The more science learns about breast milk, the more amazing we realize is God’s design of it.  Breast milk is a living liquid, its nutritional composition changing with every feeding, with the time of day, with the age of the infant.  Morning milk is highest in fat, which is why that first-shot-of-the-day nursing tends to leave our little ones lolling sated like a slightly drunken sailor.  Evening milk is thin and poor in comparison, which is why Baby tends to want to be a prime-time permanent attachment.  Any germs Baby has contracted are passed back to Mom through the nipple; her immune system manufactures antibodies that are then passed back to Baby through the milk, helping keep Baby from getting sick.  (Though, of course, if Mom succumbs to it, Baby probably will get it, too!)  Although the modern trend is to start infants on solid foods between 4-6 months, babies can grow on just breast milk for up to a year.  It is that complete!

So … watching the eagerness with which Naomi approaches nursing has had a verse running through my head the last few days.  It’s from I Peter 2:2  “Like newborn infants, crave the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  The point, of course, isn’t that we are to stay forever infantile in our spiritual walk!  The focus is rather on the intensity with which we should be seeking our spiritual sustenance, what sustenance we should be seeking, and what the purpose of that sustenance is.

Though some translations use the alternate phrasing of “long for” or “desire”, I like the term “crave” because it carries a note of intensity with it that isn’t as clear as the others.  Most women who have been pregnant can relate to that word “crave”!  When you’ve got a craving, your mind, mouth and stomach are fixated on one thing, and one thing only.  You want it so badly you can smell it, taste it, feel it in your mouth.  It can keep you awake at night thinking about it.  Like a newborn infant, then, we are to crave – earnestly, fervently, intensely desire – our spiritual milk.  We need to be careful that we don’t let ourselves get so distracted by other things in this life that we forget to get hungry!

We also have to be careful what we let ourselves get hungry for.  We are to crave “pure spiritual milk”.  The Greek word for ‘spiritual’ here is from the same root as Logos, the Word, so  in this context, our milk should be coming from the Word of God.  It needs to be pure – not pasteurized, not homogenized, nothing added.  Whole, not skim or 2%.  There are numerous inspirational authors out there, libraries full of thought-provoking books, nearly endless challenging sermons to be listened to.  All have their benefits, but none should ever take the place of that pure spiritual milk that, like breast milk, is living and active, fresh each time you partake of it, meeting each new need as it comes.

What’s the purpose of that milk?  Is it just to make us feel full and happy?  If a baby were nursing perfectly well but wasn’t gaining weight or changing at all from what he was as a newborn, we’d know there was a problem, because any normal infant who is getting plenty of good nourishment and care is going to grow and develop. In the same way, those who are feeding on the Word should be growing and developing, too.  The Greek term used in the verse – “…so that you may grow up into salvation…” – refers to the normal development of children into adulthood.  The sanctification process is like child development, a growth process, a creeping-crawling-cruising-toddling-walking-running progression into maturity.  We will never be perfect, and the more mature we get the farther we realize we have to go, but the general trend should always be one of moving forward.

One of the qualities of breast milk is that it is naturally sweet.  It’s not just good for babies; it tastes good, too!  It is in every way desirable.  In the same way, we who are believers HAVE tasted and seen that the Lord is good.  He has saved us by His grace, through no effort of our own, from the depths of sin and hell.  Is that not goodness?  He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Him.  Is that not goodness?  He has given us sunrise and sunset, sunshine and rain, mountains, oceans, flowers, a whole world of wonder.  Is that not goodness?  If you are reading this, you are obviously ALIVE, breathing, with vision and wit enough to understand (and I to write!)  Is that not goodness?  If we keep in mind just the goodness of the Lord that we have already tasted, it should surely whet our appetite for more!

So……  got milk?