Scripture Depleting/Scripture Loading

A few years ago, I enjoyed recreational bodybuilding (stop laughing!). I still hit the gym 3 times a week, but I was a very serious lifter back in the day, getting up at 5 every morning to slap the iron down at a Gold's Gym.

I decided to make it my goal to be in peak physical condition at the time of my wedding and drove myself relentlessly toward this goal. Two days before the wedding service I had pictures taken of myself to commemorate this athletic achievement. I looked pretty good.

One of the practices that I engaged in is called "carb depleting/carb loading". It is a common technique used immediately before a bodybuilding competition to accentuate muscular definition. It works like this: about six days before competition time, a bodybuilder will cease all intake of carbohydrates and consume only protein. Then, about two days before competition, he resumes eating carbs. The effect of this delicate balancing game, when timed properly, is slightly increased definition.

Nothing prepared me for the experience of carb depleting. My diet consisted entirely of protein powder drinks during that time. A gnawing hunger ate at me continuously. To fight it off, I drank a protein drink. Yet the shakes had no impact on my hunger. It was as though I was pouring the shake into a vessel with a hole in the bottom.

When I resumed consuming carbohydrates, I felt as though I had not eaten in days. The first carb serving that I ate -- spinach -- was simply the greatest, most nourishing food that I had ever tasted in my life.

Christian literature is like the carb depleting/carb loading process. At your neighborhood LifeWay or Cokesbury, there are an endless array of spiritual formation and speculation books to buy and read. They can be useful for Christian personal growth and application.

But there's no substitute for the pure milk of the Word. Nothing can fill the hunger of my soul except daily Bible reading. I know that as a Christian and a minister-candidate, I'm supposed to find so much meaning in the writings of people like Henri Nouwen, Theresa of Avila, and the Desert Fathers. But my experience is that after reading them, I still feel as empty as I did when I had a protein shake during the carb depleting phase. I know that I'm supposed to be impressed by these contemplative works, but they seem so...well, tedious.

But Scripture fills me like that first meal during carb loading. Even the long stretches of Leviticus, Zechariah, and Revelation. They feel like solid food in a way that nothing else does.

As I said in my Methodist Blogger Profile a year ago, I rarely read anything other than the Bible. That is, in part, because I dearly want to know the Bible intensively (I've been a Christian for only just over four years). But mostly because everything else seems so boring and empty in comparison. Going without Scripture is like going without carbohydrates -- there is no substitute.

[Editorial note: No, that is not a picture of me.]