Episode 3: Breakfast on the Beach

Erin Davis: Bethany, you are a newlywed, so I have to know, do you remember your wedding cake?

Bethany Beal: Well, thank you for calling me a newlywed at three years, and with a toddler. It makes me feel very romantic. (laughter)

I actually was very excited about my wedding cake. It was filled with berries and had the most delicious buttercream frosting—I can imagine it now.

Erin: Oh, man.

Bethany: I coordinated my whole wedding ahead of time and just gave someone the schedule, and I remember putting on there, “Bring me several slices of cake!” because I wanted to enjoy it during the wedding.

Somehow, it got missed. I think someone tried to bring it, but then they were like, “Oh, no, they’re busy right now, don’t bring it to Bethany and Dave.” So the whole wedding went by, I left, and I never, to this day, besides that one bite when Dave and I exchanged it, I never got another piece of my cake, which was so disappointing! I’m so sad.

Erin: Oh no, that’s tragic!

Bethany: But, you’re not that much older and married than me, so do you—

Erin: That’s kind of you, because Jason and I have been married for twenty years, and I don’t remember much about it.

Bethany: Do you remember it? Do you remember the cake?

Erin: We had a beach wedding with just a few people, and we didn’t have cake there, because we just got married and that was the end of that. But we did have a reception when we got home a couple weeks later, and my mom’s friends, who are all wonderful cooks, all brought different cakes. So, we had apple pie and Italian wedding cake, and my Aunt Rhonda makes this chocolate cake that’s out of this world, and there was one of those there. We had a whole cake table. It was divine, and I’m sorry that you didn’t get any, because I think I got a slice of every kind of cake at my wedding.

Bethany: You had the feasting, and I had the fasting!

Erin: That’s right! We are a great combination.

Bethany: Jesus did a lot of things for His disciples, including cooking for them. Erin Davis is going to tell us that story here on The Deep Well. She’s in the middle of a series based on her book, Fasting and Feasting.

Here’s Erin.

Erin: I was nine months pregnant with my second son when—this is not an exaggeration—a plate of pancakes saved my life. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but only a slight one. I want to tell you the story.

If you have never experienced the reality of having an eight-pound baby inside of your body and a 20-pound toddler who always wants to cling to the outside of your body, then you might not understand the desperation of this (or maybe you’ve forgotten it). I already had one son, Eli, and he was just shy of two when this was happening, and he was constantly clinging to me, as two-year-olds tend to do. He wanted to be held all the time.

Noble was the baby inside of my womb, and he was by far my biggest baby, and this was the end of that pregnancy. So, you got it? Baby on the outside, baby on the inside, tired, exhausted, worn out—how else can I say it?—mama. I needed a nap. I needed a friend. And what I really needed was someone to lift my eyes from my current circumstances. As much joy as there was in that season with two sons, there was also a lot of demands. I needed someone to say, “There is hope beyond this little moment in your life.”

I found all of those things (except the nap) in a perfectly prepared stack of buttermilk pancakes with butter and real maple syrup. My mouth just started watering; maybe yours did, too.

This story involves a woman named Mandy. Now, Mandy and I went to church together, but we were really just acquaintances. I might wave at Mandy if I saw her across the grocery store, but I’m kind of an introvert. I more likely would act like I didn’t see her and walk the other way. But I’d never been to Mandy’s house, we’d never been out for coffee—I mean, we were acquaintances.

But I really think that the Holy Spirit might have nudged Mandy to reach out to me in my hour of need. She called me, and this is what she said. “Erin, come over in the morning, in your jammies, with Eli. I’m going to make you breakfast.”

I want you to sit in the relief of that for a moment. “I will make you breakfast.” Imagine whatever is stressing you out right now or a moment in your own life where you were just so tired you couldn’t put one foot in front of the other, and then imagine someone calling you—anyone calling you; it doesn’t matter who it is—and saying, “Come over. Let me make you breakfast.”

Now, it’s not my typical M.O. to mosey over to the house of an acquaintance with my hair unbrushed and my toddler still in his overnight diaper, but I did. That day, I could not resist that invitation, so I went to a house I’d never been to with a woman I barely knew, in my pajamas, wanting that breakfast she’d promised. That morning, there Eli and I stood on the doorstep. We were unkempt; we were unpretentious, and we were longing to be fed.

Eli pulled on the floor. She pulled out some toys—her kids were at school—and Mandy served me that perfect plate of pancakes I described earlier. This isn’t an overstatement, and it’s not an exaggeration: it was one of the most significant meals I’ve ever eaten. Every bite was preaching a sermon to my very tired heart. “You are seen, you are loved, and you have been commissioned for this assignment of motherhood. Jesus has not abandoned you in it.”

I want to paint the real picture here. It’s not like Mandy opened her Bible and read Scripture over me. No, she just fed me a plate of pancakes. But I have a hunch—I’ve never asked her . . . We’re still not really friends; I’ve moved to a different town. But I have a hunch, all these years later, that she was praying for me as I ate those pancakes, because it really was a turning point for me. I really could face that situation with one little boy, which very quickly became two little boys, with some fortitude that I didn’t have before I ate the pancakes.

Now, all of this reminds me of a story in Scripture. It’s found in John 21. I’ll say it again: every text is part of a context, so I like to set the stage. In the preceding verses of John, they describe the most significant, the most hope-filled event in all of human history . . . the resurrection of Jesus. I want you to know that this follows the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Sin and death had been conquered, yet our broken planet just kept on spinning on its axis. It’s because of the resurrection that we have true hope in Jesus, but our reality is a lot like the reality we’re going to see here with the disciples. Yes, Jesus has been raised, but our lives still have aches and pains. Those range from the mildly annoying, which I can look back at this story and go, “Okay, I had it pretty good. I just needed some extra sleep.” But some of us have aches and pains that are truly overwhelming, truly staggering, and that’s the world we live in.

When I read John 21 and I see the tenderness with which Jesus responds to our chronic state of need, it changes the way I think about food. I know that sounds strange, but we’re going to unpack it together. I want you to listen to the first few verses of John 21.

After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberius. He revealed himself in this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

You got the scene? Can you imagine it with your mind? Can’t you just transpose every moment of despair or defeat or discouragement or disappointment that you’ve ever had onto these verses? I mean, these disciples had been through massive trauma not long before this. The future was as clear as mud to them. They knew that Jesus had risen from the dead, but everything else about their lives was shrouded in mystery. Would He establish His kingdom on earth? Would He take them with Him to be in heaven? Would they see Him again soon? He’s not with them as this chapter opens. Where was He? Were they safe? Was Jesus pleased with them? What were they supposed to do now, after all that went down?

When they didn’t know what to do, Simon Peter did what he knew. He said, “I’m going fishing.” His friends did what friends do; they said, “We’ll go with you.”

But the fish weren’t biting. In fact, Scripture tells us right there in verse 3 that they caught nothing. Not even a nibble—nothing was biting for these fishermen. (We know from Scripture that they used nets, so maybe that’s why they didn’t get a nibble.)

I just imagine, as they are working through everything that they’ve experienced, as they have all these big existential questions about what life post-resurrection is supposed to look like . . . As they go back to what they know, which is the fishing boat, and they cast their nets, and it’s totally fruitless; did that feel like insult added to injury? Did it feel like God was maybe pouring salt into their gaping questions? Maybe it did. 

But a new day was about to dawn. I want to pick it up at verse 4.

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, do you have any fish?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." So they cast it.

Now, they were not even able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish! Things have turned around quickly for the disciples, right? They have this massive haul of fish now! Verse 7:

The disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

When did the disciples realize it was Jesus? When their nets were so full of so much fish that they could not haul them back in! They recognized Jesus through their abundance.

Many of us are so weary of what’s been called the health and wealth gospel, and frankly, we should be. Following Jesus is not a ticket to material wealth, it’s a decision to turn from worldly sources of wealth and embrace a lifestyle of self-denial. But does that mean that God does not bless us richly? It doesn’t! Here Jesus was giving His friends food, lots of it, and He was also giving them wealth. Simon was a fisherman—we see that in Luke 5—and Jesus gave him the resources he depended on in abundance, so much fish that they couldn’t get it in the boat. It wasn’t until they saw how many fish they had that they knew Jesus must be near.

It reminds me a little bit of the story in Mark 9 that we just talked about. I mean, their own resources, their own abilities, their own skills, their own knowledge of the sea where they were fishing, it netted zero fish. When they were at the end of their ropes or the end of their nets, Jesus stepped up. It was in seeing how much He provided that they go, “Oh, that’s not just any guy on the shore! That’s Jesus.” He was. He was close by, within a hundred yards, as Scripture just told us. And what was He doing? He was making them breakfast.

Listen to John 21:9–10.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught."

Isn’t that interesting? Jesus didn’t need their fish. He already had fish sizzling in a pan beside a loaf of freshly baked bread. Mmm! Is there anything that smells better or tastes better than freshly baked bread? I could do without the fish-for-breakfast part, but that freshly baked bread . . . I can almost taste it through the Scripture. Jesus asks them for fish, but He didn’t need it.

This is a rich passage. There are lots and lots of important themes here that we could meditate on—chew on, so to speak. But I don’t want us to miss the significance of this one simple fact that’s really clear here in the text. When Jesus’ friends were hurting, He cooked them breakfast. They had to have been still reeling from the disorienting whiplash of the arrest, the trials, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of their Savior and friend.

This moment of simple pleasure of a good meal being shared among friends had to have been a respite from the storms that were swirling all around them and the storms that had to be swirling in their hearts. This is about Jesus; it’s not about me. But I see a connection to the way I felt eating that plate of pancakes and the way Jesus’ friends must have felt in this moment as He calls them to the shore and serves them a breakfast He made just for them. They had to have felt seen. They had to have felt beloved. And they had to have felt commissioned in a fresh way for what they were about to do, which was to set the world on fire for the gospel.

I know I’m supposed to say something really spiritual here, probably, but what I see in the Bible is that good food was their reminder that Jesus had not abandoned them.

I doubt Jesus is going to cook your breakfast for you this morning, although He certainly provided it. Everything is by Him, everything is for Him, everything is through Him. But He is offering you the gift of His presence like He did with the disciples. Isn’t that its own kind of daily bread?

One shift that can happen when we let Scripture inform our approach to food is that we see that Jesus deserves the glory for the food on our plates and the freedom of our souls. It all matters. It’s not like the spiritual things are really important to God and the physical things aren’t. No, we’re not disembodied. He created our bodies; He created our spirits. He cares for our spiritual needs; He cares for our physical needs. It all matters, and it’s all from Him.

Every bit of food—that’s not hyperbole, that’s not an exaggeration, that’s not me being witty . . . This is just a bottom-line fact: every bit of food you will ever eat has been gifted to you by a Savior who goes to the cross for sinners and cooks breakfast for downtrodden friends.

This passage is another one, like Mark 9, that has been reshaping my view of food for a long time. My biggest takeaway from this passage is that Jesus is attentive to my needs. Jesus is attentive to all of my needs. Now, I know that I wasn’t in the boat. I know that I’m not in this story. But the Jesus who was is the same Jesus I serve. As He cared for the disciples, I can see evidence that that’s how He cares for me:

• He does care for my spiritual needs.
• He’s rescued me. He’s redeemed me.
• He listens when I pray.
• He’s shaping me more into His image.
• He takes care of those needs I have.
• He takes care of my emotional needs.
• He is my peace; He is my comforter.
• He takes care of my relational needs.
• He helps me to be somebody who forgives.
• He helps me to be somebody who is forgiven.
• But He also takes care of my physical needs.

He doesn’t force-order rank those. I need all of those things, and He takes care of all those things. It all matters to Him.

If the purpose of Scripture is to transform me, to transform you to be more like Jesus (and I believe it is), then it’s okay if all of those needs matter to me, too. It’s okay to care for my spiritual needs by seeking the Lord and praying and reading my Bible and going to church. But where I’ve struggled for years is I’ve felt weird about taking care of my physical needs. Surely, I should be spending time doing something more important. 

That’s gotten me one place: sick. I look at this story and I see, Oh. Jesus tended to the fact that His friends were hungry. For every area of need, I can know—every area of need—I can know for sure that Jesus is my need-meeter. He’s the one who cares for me.

Let’s head back to the breakfast club on the shore. Verses 11–14 say this:

So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. [That is a huge haul for any fishermen.] Although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast."

Now, none of the disciples dared to ask, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.

I see parallels there to the Last Supper before He was tried and killed and resurrected. There He served them, and here He served them. That’s who He is; that’s what He does. He is a God who cares for us.

Now, of course, it was in this very same encounter that Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep. He didn’t say shepherd them; He didn’t say teach them; He didn’t say serve them; He didn’t say preach at them (although Peter would do all of that). What Jesus told Peter to do after this breakfast on the shore was, “Feed my sheep.” Jesus fed His disciples first, and then He asked them to feed the rest of the world.

Do you want to be like Jesus today? Of course, you do, so do I. I can’t help but wonder as I read John 21, if it’s not as complicated as we tend to think. Here’s my encouragement to you: turn towards someone who needs Christ-infused hope. Start with your own family, then your neighbors, maybe a tired mama you know from church, and repeat after Jesus, “Come and have breakfast.”

Erin Unscripted

Bethany: Erin has been reminding us what a gift it is to receive something as simple as a meal, as a pancake. It’s a gift from God and often a gift from the body of Christ.

Erin, you’ve started this whole thing with Jesus’ resurrection, so I need to know, as we’re thinking about food, how does Jesus’ resurrection give us hope in this area?

Erin: Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope in every area. It is really that important. I don’t think you can be too enthusiastic about it. I don’t think we can overstate it, because what it means is that Jesus conquered sin and death and everything that sin and death touches. 

As we’re walking through this series and I’m reading you letters and comments that I’ve received from women and telling my own story about food, don’t we see that sin and death has touched food? I mean, we have this weird, distorted relationship with it. We love it; we hate it. It’s good for us; it’s bad for us. That’s the mark of sin, that we just don’t even know how to understand this basic thing that God’s given us. The resurrection does apply there, because first of all, it means that it’s not always going to be this way. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have hope for a future reality that is not marred by sin. That’s everything.

It also means that Jesus has power over everything. I mean, that’s what He was showcasing. “I am triumphant over everything. Even death cannot hold me.” 

You might be listening to this and thinking, I’m never going to have freedom in this area. I’m never going to feel differently about it. I’m always going to struggle with this. No! If Jesus can conquer death, Jesus can give you hope here. So, just take it as proof that Jesus is powerful over everything. He does have the last word, and whatever it is you’re struggling with in your life (it doesn’t have to be food), He really is victorious.

Bethany: I feel like it’s so hard for us as women, particularly, to accept help sometimes, or to ask for help. I love the pancakes that you accepted, and how you don’t know, but you feel like she was probably praying for you, and you were changed. You went in, ate some pancakes. You left, and you were a refreshed woman.

How can we actually go about either accepting help or asking for help? Because that seems daunting sometimes.

Erin: Yes. Isn’t that what we see in the passage we’ve been looking at? The disciples take Jesus’ help in the form of fish and bread. Maybe it’s because they were just so spent by all that was happening, they had no resistance. But what I see in Peter is a changed man. I mean, he’s the same man who, just prior at the Last Supper, Jesus said, “I’m going to wash your feet.” And Peter was like, “No! You can’t wash my feet! I’m going to wash Yours, Savior!” I mean, he was zealous, but he wasn’t accepting the kind of help, the kind of service that Jesus wanted to give him.

Here his hands are just open. “You want to feed me, Lord? I’ll take it! You want to walk with me on the shore of the beach? I’ll walk with you. You want to give me instructions? I’ll listen.”

I will say that in that season of life where I had that plate of pancakes, I was way more likely to resist help than to accept it, which probably is how I got myself in the state of extreme exhaustion that I was in. We all need help, and the Lord’s really grown me in that area.

I can think of a time just a couple years ago when our family was going through a whole lot of hard all at once. I made an internal decision that I was going to open my hands and accept whatever anybody put in them. It didn’t matter what it was; if it came from the people of God, I was going to take it.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: They fed us, and they helped take care of our kids. I had a friend who came and cleaned my toilets (bless her!). I just was like, “Whatever anybody’s going to give me, I’m going to take that help.” That comes from a right understanding of, I can’t handle this on my own. I really am limited; I really am broken. That’s part of why God’s given me the family of God to make up for my lack. So, it’s just a position shift.

You know, helping others is the other side of that coin.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: We are responsible for each other in the family of God. We do belong to each other. When somebody in your church or in the wider family of God, when somebody in your church has a crisis, you can’t go, “I hope somebody else steps up and blesses them.” That’s for you.

I’m in a large church, and every week we walk through the prayer list together. I’m so glad we do this. We’ve not gotten too big for our britches in this department. Our pastor will say, “Take out a pen. Write down these names as I say them.” Then he’ll say some things like, “You can send them a card. You could drop them a meal. This is the surgery date; I’m sure they’d love it if some of us were in the hospital waiting room.”

I mean, he gives us those marching orders week after week and is training us. “You belong to each other; help each other. That’s how we’re going to get through the week.” That mindset has been so liberating and life-giving and sweet and important in my own life, just to say when it comes to the body of Christ, “I need their help, and they need my help, and we’re just going to ask for it.”

Bethany: Yes. I know it can be difficult sometimes when we’re feeling like, I need help! to look at others, but I know there’s so much life that comes from serving and giving. That’s literally what Jesus came to do.

I know it was super helpful for me, especially when I was a new mom, when people specifically offered things. Instead of saying, “How can I help you?” and I’m like, “I don’t know!” They were like, “Hey, I’d love to bring a meal tonight. Would you like this or that?” It just made me feel a little bit more okay about accepting help, so that could be a good way, practically, to go about it. Offer something super specific, like, “Hey, I would love to come and clean your toilets today. What time works?”

Erin: Yes, right!

Bethany: It just kind of takes that guilt off.

Erin: You’re right. When we’re in a moment of need, just finding the energy to articulate the need can be too hard sometimes.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: So just being specific and saying, “Hey, I’m responsible for you. I’m going to do something for you,” is, I think, representative of what we see here in this passage.

Bethany: I feel a little bit jealous of the disciples, getting Jesus literally to cook for them and feed them.

Erin: Me, too!

Bethany: That is amazing! I know it can feel almost discouraging, like, “Okay, Jesus isn’t here to physically cook for me and to encourage me, and I can’t sit there with Him and experience that respite like the disciples got to experience.” So how can we still experience being at the feet of Jesus and experiencing that rest if He’s not here literally, physically to cook for us and minister to us?

Erin: Yes, I’m with you. I would give my right or left arm just to hear Him sigh, and here He’s standing with them on the beach and serving them food and talking to them in the flesh. They paid a really high price for being the ones that got to experience that, so we don’t want to romanticize it too much. But to take it back to the resurrection, because He lives we have such hope. When all of that was happening, before He went to the cross He said, “I’m going to send you a Helper, and that Helper is going to remind you.” We have that Helper; that Helper is the Holy Spirit. We can be in the presence of God.

Admittedly, not in the same way the disciples were here, and not even in the same way we’re going to be someday. Someday we’re really going to be in His presence, but we can experience His presence through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I think we just ask for it: “Lord, I need to know Your nearness.” He is near us, and He speaks to us through His Word, so we can open His Word, and we can hear from Him.

We can be with the people of God. I mean, get yourself to the people of God as often as possible, and through them we experience who He is. He’s not going to cook you fish today, but His presence is available to you at all times. You can run to Him anytime you need to, anytime you want to, and He’s right there with you.

Bethany: Sometimes the wound, though, just feels so big. It’s just gaping, and we feel like the big nets of fish just aren’t coming in. The abundance . . . I just don’t feel it. It almost feels like there’s salt being poured on this wound, and it is hard.

For the woman who’s in that place and it just feels like, I have this gaping wound; it’s hard. I don’t see the nets of fish coming in. What can she do?

Erin: Yes, she’s more in that night before, when they’re hoping, but it’s still dark and nothing’s coming in. They know that Jesus is their Savior, but there’s nothing to show for it in this moment. That’s what faith is. You know, we don’t need faith for the moments when there are 153—we don’t need faith for the moments when our nets are full of fish and we have abundance!

Bethany: That’s true!

Erin: Faith is for those moments of gap. What you do in that moment is you just trust Him to be who He said He is. I’ll often pray like this: “Jesus, what I need You to do right now is keep every promise You’ve ever made to me.” Because He’s promised, “I’m close to you when your heart is broken. I will not leave you or forsake you. I’m preparing a place for you.” Those are all future promises; that’s what hope is. Hope is not what we have right this moment. So just continuing to trust Him when you do not see; that’s faith, and that’s a good and beautiful step that God honors.

Bethany: That’s beautiful.

I just love that everything you talk about is kind of around food. It’s such an interesting conversation! This is the first time I’ve had a conversation like this for so many episodes; it’s just amazing. I think it’s hard for some of us to get to that point, where you said, “Okay, we need to do this all for the glory of God.” Some of us have been in this place where eating for the glory of God just sounds weird. We might say a quick prayer before we eat, but doing it for the glory of God? How does that actually work? How do we actually eat and see food as being a blessing from God and actually give Him glory as we’re enjoying a delicious . . . whatever our favorite thing is?

Erin: Well, I’m going to butcher this, but Pastor John Piper said something like, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him,” meaning, when we just have joy, when we just have peace, when we just have this attitude of, “Look what God has done!” that gives Him glory.

I had a friend text me last week and say, “What’s the number one way I can pray for you?” I said back, “Sometimes I’m a joyless Christian, and those two things shouldn’t be in the same sentence, and they shouldn’t be in my life.” I’ve been given the keys to the kingdom. I’ve been redeemed from death and hell. And when you’re eating a quesadilla, it seems a little strange to think about all those things. But can’t you just be a joyful receiver and a joyful giver? That gives God glory.

I understand that life isn’t all happy. That’s why we need Jesus. But that has nothing to do with joy. I can receive the gifts of God joyfully. Every time I eat there’s just that check: Oh, God gave me this! If it wasn’t for God, I wouldn’t have this bowl of frosted flakes. He gives me everything. I think that’s a really baseline way to start glorifying Him in our approach to food.

Here’s another funny way. I had a pastor once who said that he prays as he’s bringing the groceries in, because he feels like that way it’s all covered. If they forget to pray when they eat, they’re good! It’s silly, and it’s sweet. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t have money to buy these groceries,]; I wouldn’t have arms to carry these groceries in; I wouldn’t have a countertop to set these groceries on; I wouldn’t have a refrigerator to put them in. “Thank You, Jesus, for these groceries.”

Bethany: That’s great. I agree with you. If we truly lived with that thankfulness and gratitude, it would totally transform us from being these joyless Christians. I find myself in that place way too often. Conviction for me!

But I know you don’t want us to stop with just the food. You talked about how the disciples were to feed the rest of the world, not literally with food, but a spiritual food. You talked about that a little bit. Can you unpack that a little bit more, how we can do that? How can we feed other people, spiritually speaking?

Erin: I love that model we see in this passage here. Jesus first attended to their physical needs. They were hungry. They had been fishing all night. Then, after their bellies were full, He said, “I have this mission for you, and it is to feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” He wasn’t talking about loaves and fishes anymore. He was talking about Peter’s role as a pastor, and that he was to feed not people’s physical hunger (although the disciples did that too). 

We have this hunger for Jesus. People call it a “God-shaped hole.” It’s also a God-shaped stomach. It’s just this hunger, this ache for Him, for what only He can do, for salvation, for hope, for purpose, for joy, for life. We all hunger for that.

The way we feed people that need is that we tell the lost about the beauty of salvation, and we tell the saints about all that God has done for us. We do that our whole lives. That’s the Great Commission. We’re on commission with Christ to win the lost to Jesus and to remind the saints of all that is for us. You can do that a zillion different ways, easy ways and hard ways. You can text a Scripture verse to somebody today. You can sit down and walk a lost coworker through the Romans road. You can sing with your fellow brethren at church, and you can sing loud and encourage each other. You can pray with somebody and for somebody—all the things Jesus taught us to do. It’s feeding that hunger that exists in all of us.

Bethany: I love how simple you make it sound, because sometimes it can feel like, okay, in this season of my life I have a young toddler. I feel like most of my time is spent with him. But just like your friend did, just invite someone over and feed them some pancakes. I have a friend who was sick for many years and was really bedridden. She made it her ministry just to pray for others. So, I love how you broke it down. We’re all in different seasons of life. Some of us are single, some of us have little kids, some of us are married without kids, some of us are empty nesters, so it doesn’t have to look the same for every person, which is amazing.

Erin: Your toddler, Davie, who I would like to be his adopted aunt, is the cutest guy ever. He has a hunger for Jesus. So, it’s not like you have to go out. You do it with whoever is with you. We’re all hungry. We’re all longing for Him. In talking about Him, in sharing about Him, in singing about Him, in praying to Him, we’re feeding each other in that state of need.

Bethany: Today’s discussion has been both biblical and practical, which I really appreciate the practical side, because I need that. Is that what people can expect if they grab your book Fasting and Feasting?

Erin: Absolutely. It’s forty devotionals. If you’re thinking you’re going to exegete a whole passage, you’re not. It’s bite-sized, to use another food phrase, because I think that’s what many of us need. But I hope it is that balance. I’m always going to point you to the Bible, because that’s all I have to offer. But what does that mean in my life? I’ll tell you. And what do I think that could mean in your life? I’ll tell you.

Bethany: You can actually grab a copy right now, today, at ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell. 

Erin: Bethany, I’m so glad you’re here with me. I enjoy being with you so much, first of all, but one of the things I love about you is that you’re really speaking truth to young women. Man, do they need it, just like we all need it! I’d love for you just to take a little bit of time and talk about Girl Defined.

Bethany: Yes. I am a woman; I’m thirty-three, and I find it so hard not to find my identity in everything but Christ. Anything else, I’m going there. It’s hard. I know other young women and women feel the same way. So, my passion is to link arms with sisters in Christ and say, “Hey, it’s hard. We’re constantly looking to things other than Christ to find our identity, but let’s focus on Christ. I’m here with you to talk about guys, talk about marriage, talk about whatever it is, struggles. Let’s link arms; let’s go to Christ.” That’s what Girl Defined is all about. You can go to my website, GirlDefined.com, or social media anywhere at Girl Defined. We would love to link arms with you as well.

Erin: I’m not young anymore, I don’t think, forty-one (some people would consider that young). But I consider myself a part of the Girl Defined sisterhood, so I am linking arms with you. You’re right, I get so much out of all that you’re doing. Thank you.

Bethany: Erin, what can we expect in the next episode?

Erin: Well, there is a reason why nobody likes to talk about fasting, and we’re going to talk about that reason in the next episode.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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