Being a big animal lover, I just can’t pass up the opportunity to rescue and care for any animal. Be it a bird, lizard, dog, cat, or any other one of God’s creatures. A couple of weeks ago I was driving along the road and saw a tiny baby turtle concealed in her shell in the middle of the road. I stopped and rescued her, gave her a name and put a lovely home together for her at my house.
I’ve learned a lot about turtles this past week as I have begun caring for Roxy. For instance, turtles require an environment that presents them with an option of dry bedding and moist bedding, they must be fed in the morning, they need sunlight to digest correctly, baby turtles require more food than adults, and the biggest factor: turtles go on “hunger strike” when they are stressed out by something, such as being captured.
It should not come as a shock to anyone that food is pretty important. I spent several days trying many different approaches to convince Roxy to eat her food. I presented it to her in many different conditions and gave her a variety of options. Disappointingly, she continued to neglect her needs by refusing to eat the food I was desperately trying to convince her to eat.
The Bible compares itself to food in Hebrews 5:12-14: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil”. As Children of God we should be as anxious to “eat” as I was as I watched my turtle continue to ignore her food for days on end. It can be easier to see how deep the need is to be fed when it is another life we care about, than it is in our own. God, however, sees the need in our lives far more than we are able to and desires to give us what we need.
As Christians we can begin to feel stuck, or captured, by sin and have a tendency to do the same thing my turtle did. We react to being “captured” by starving ourselves of God’s word and His presence. Take Paul’s words in Romans 7:18-20 for example: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me”. As Paul struggled with wanting to do what was good, he felt the weight of his temptation. As we struggle with feeling this way, going on “hunger strike” cannot be our response as Christians. Just as I was able to see the big picture, that my turtle needed her food to be strong and healthy even though she did not yet want it, God is anxiously waiting for His children to choose to take in the meat of His word and fight the good fight.
