Are you ever tempted to mindlessly eat as a filler for the day? If so, munch on the Word of God and snack on the inspiration of Truth. You’ll be much happier with the outcome.
The healthier pastime
June 24, 2026 | 23 comments
Spiritual ideas that inspire healing
Whenever I feel like snacking, just because, I ask myself: What am I really hungry for? Then I ask God to feed me with the Bread of Heaven. And a sense of Soul-satisfaction comes to replace any feeling of emptiness.
Give us, Lord, our daily bread!
Thank you Maddie! Very helpful.
❤️
Nice!!! THANK THE GOOD LORD FOR SPIRITUAL REFRESHMENT !!!
Thanks, Evan and Maddie. I’ve been thinking about the “pleasure” of food in light of Mrs. Eddy’s teaching about the lies and unreality of the sense perception of *both* pleasure and pain. The temptation of the pleasure of food surely is relevant to my wrestle with body weight, and all aspects of sense perception. (Others can surely cite relevant passages, and I’d love to explore this!) Cheers!
Doug, Beginning with the Truth about true being as cited in the Scientific Statement of Being
which is in Science & Health bt Mrs, Eddy, we learn that there is no reality in matter,
So if we acknowledge our true being as infinite Mind’s idea that is spiritual, not material
we can work out from there.
If we consider ourselves to be material then we are
putting ourselves under the supposed laws of matter, which are just man-made
laws, therefore not real laws because not of God, who is the only law maker.
So we will find many different supposed laws about the same problem. Some
people eat as much as they like and they never suffer from overweight, while others
eating the same amount may find themselves overweight. Then the so-called mortal
man has to make up other laws to try and correct this condition – and so it goes on.
endlessly. No real intelligent solution can be found in matter, since it has no life,
Truth, nor intelligence.
However, understanding ourselves as immortals, made in God’s
own likeness as completely spiritual ideas, we look to God for
satisfying our hunger, because – as Maddie beautifully puts it above, , He
feeds us with our true bread, the spiritual Bread of heaven, which is
health, harmony and holiness. This is fed into our thoughts,
and totally satisfies all our needs, which are spiritual, not material.
Mrs Eddy suffered from eating problems early in her life, and
when she finally came to discover Christian Science, she discovered
that material food has no power for good or bad, because God’s Love
for us, His children, is supplying our every need. She then found she was
not enjoying food the way she thought she would, but just naturally ate things
in moderation, and was in control of her thoughts about food as having no
power to affect us on way or another.
The thought came to me may years ago that by indulging in some food
that was tempting me, the seeming enjoyment only lasted for a short time. and we may fee tempted to eat some more – and even more!! That is the way animal magnetism would get us hooked on matter as a substance. And this can go on from bad to worse, until the penny drops
through the teachings of Christian Science. Many people have been freed from this
mental illusion over the years. So it is well to be wary of this false attraction and
take control of our thoughts before they get out of hand.
Wow, this last paragraph in particular is so helpful, thank you Maggie.
“I would like to share the following testimony as proof that the…” By Evan P. Mehlenbacher. From the December 19, 1988 issue of The Christian Science Sentinel:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/mcndfw3fws?s=copylink
Here is a copy link to an artle re dieting
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/8ri5gvhzjy?s=copylink
Wonderful, insightful poem Maggie. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you very much, dear Maggie. for that lovely and helpful poem by Jill Gooding! ♡
Thank you very much dear Evan for your today’s wonderful SpiritView. It’s so refreshing humorous and very helpful. – I love it! ♡
Here’s another article by Evan. *This link may/may not open entirely for those without a JSH-online subscription.
“Weight-wishing? By Evan Mehlenbacher. From the February 21, 2000 issue of The Christian Science Sentinel:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/2000/2/102-8/weight-wishing
Excellent article! Thank you. ❣️
That’s right dear. J, this article doesn’t fully open for me. But thanks very much for these 2 articles by Evan!
Can somebody open this article for us all, plrase?
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/gn2zlzph06?s=copylink
Thank you very dearly, Trista – it’s working ❤️
Thank you, Evan, for SpiritView, your daily hosting of the SV family and your helpful inspiration that keeps on giving as it sparks further thoughts from readers.
About weight, one thing I was considering lately is the idea of “fulfillment” – God being all and His reflection being a whole, complete, fulfilled reflection, which could never become a partial or deformed reflection (because it is God who is the Reflector), we could never be underfilled (underweight or lacking in right appetite) or overfilled (overweight or experiencing excess/wrong appetite.) God’s ideas, being in and of God, are ever full-filled, whole, and ever so, as always maintained by divine Love’s perfect Mind and Soul.
Thanks for the articles too! I remember Evan’s testimony about weight, I believe I first heard it at a lecture of his. It continues to be inspiring.
Thanks for those articles, the ideas are so perfectly expressed.
I find it very helpful to think about early Sunday school lessons — if God doesn’t want this snack, neither do I as His reflection! It’s that simple! Really! I just let it get more complicated sometimes —ho ho.
What is this “big deal” about eating? I eat to live in this experience.; I don’t live to eat. So I eat until I am comfortably filled and then go on with more important things. At different times in my past, I have been made fun of, ridiculed, ostricized, and even affronted by unkind comments to weigh more. Things no one would say to someone who is “overweight.” But God loves me as His image and likeness…as a spiritual being and not as a material being made of matter. I live and move and have my being in Him and am grateful
for this true view of my existence that has come to
light and shown me His peace.
In response to Doug’s relevant passages, and on this topic, the first that
came to mind, is from S&H, “Taking less ‘thought for your life, what ye
shall eat or what ye shall drink’; less thought “for your body what ye shall
put on’ will do much more for the health of the rising generation than you
dream … We must not attribute more and more intelligence to matter,
but less and less, if we would be wise and healthy … The higher nature of
man is not governed by the lower; if it were, the order of wisdom would
be reversed.”
In an age where technology (much of it good, but also a lot of it that
“influences erroneously”) it seems making idols out of matter with
weight, age, etc. is put before us constantly through advertisements, tv,
movies, pundits and there seems to be “a pill” for everything advertised,
including for weight. Even in Mrs. Eddy’s time, she wrote, “This material
world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side
there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science
and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and
pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new
phases until their nothingness appears”.
When we focus our affections on the material, the “appetite” of the flesh,
the spiritual view is sometimes not the healthier pastime.
Thank you all for great thoughts, references and links. I’m grateful for the attention on this topic…which, for me, was and is more about pleasure than food, but food is a good thing to look it, for me. Best to all and…
Onward!