If you are a sheep in the fold of the Great Shepherd, you will not lack rest or what to eat. Beyond these, you will not thirst, as He leads you beside the still, calm waters.  This is another way of saying that your thirst will be quenched. The Lord in Matthew 5:6 spoke of this when He said:
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

Hunger and thirst are part of the mechanisms that have been programmed into the human body to produce growth. How you respond to these impulses will determine the quality or type of growth you experience. Prolonged starvation and refusal to eat both lead to death. Similarly, while taking only a particular kind of food, some people experience abnormal growth patterns, due to the absence of the required quantity of nutrients, vitamins, fatty acids, and so on, needed by their body. This is why children who are exclusively fed a diet full of carbohydrates tend to have oversized heads and stomachs, rickety legs and hands – a growth problem known as “Kwashiorkor”. For growth to be even and progressive, all the needs of the body must be provided.

The observed effect of food on physical growth in the natural world also applies to what happens in the spirit. Today, spiritual growth is so distorted in the Body of Christ as a result of the nature of food being fed and the attitude of believers towards spiritual food. There are different stages of growth in the Kingdom of God. 1st Peter 2:2 says baby Christians should be fed with milk, so as to grow normally. Today, you have those who claim to have been saved for 5, 10 or more years still insisting on being fed with milk. If a 10 year old child still wants to be breastfed, what kind of growth would result from this? Also, there are so many false doctrines being propagated through the airwaves and in churches today. What kind of growth will such doctrines deliver to those who receive them? In addition, a number of those who are being fed the sound, undiluted truth of God’s word do not have enough time to receive it. What kind of growth do you think will result from such spiritual eating pattern? When you do not grow as you are expected to, you become a problem to yourself and others around you. How are you growing today? What are you feeding on? How often do you feed on God’s word?
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.