The Bread of life

Faith starts as a mustard seed, it begins to grow and spread out. It grows branches and develops deep roots, it can withstand some of the elements, it can house nesting birds (small ones albeit). Much like faith each time a new branch forms it becomes stronger, it becomes healthier and it fills out into a lush tree. The fruits develop and spread more seeds so that more bushes and trees can grow. Sometimes that tree becomes withered and sick, branches become brittle, leaves fall off and whither away. The birds shy away from this dying bush and seek out new asylum, they use the new bush again until it withers and so on. Out comes the farmer and he trims off the dead branches and nurtures the dying tree back to health and the tree becomes even more lush than before providing more fruits.
   I think that as our faith at times can diminish when we are not diligent in nurturing our own branches of faith. We do not always take note of the sickly branches and take care of them. As our faith becomes perverted in any one aspect it becomes easier to just put aside the the things we need to do to nurture and strengthen our spiritual self.
   Think of it in another aspect, you may have a finely woven tapestry and it has one loose thread. As that thread begins to unravel it grows or rather shrinks, yes our faith to can unravel, and it can unravel at such an alarming rate until there is little to no faith left. There are things we can do to prevent the unraveling or if you prefer the withering of the tree, we can restitch the tapestry or cut the loose thread, we can trim dead branches and nurture the tree. We can tie the ends of the tapestry to prevent future unraveling.
    In faith we can also stop the unraveling and wilting. I have to admit, my faith is sometimes like a bellows, it swells and deflates. I can feel the spirit come and go as I do different things in my life, this has been true my entire life.
    My faith has struggled of late, I have been having a hard time balancing life, work and faith and to keep it all interconnected. Work pressure has been in a large way distracting me from doing a lot of those things that I should be doing. The sence also of not really feeling like belonging to a church too has distracted me and in some aspect cut me and my family off from feeling God's presence, when we joined this church we belonged to a ward, a family, but with a fledgling group that has been started and being separated from the family we joined is very tough. We feel like pawns being moved back and forth between our fledgling group and the mainstream ward. It is frustrating and dims  the sense of belonging that first overcame us, eighteen months ago we felt that we had arrived home, we were invited into the presence of God,  we felt like we belonged somewhere and that we had become a small part of something great. These last few months of being bounced back and forth has really been distracting, maybe long time members don't feel the same separation, but from a new converts perspective it is hugely disapointing.
    What does this really have to do with the bread of life, well it comes down to this, we become distracted and we fail to nurture our spiritual self, we forget about the simpler things and become distracted thus starving ourselves. When Christ teaches us that He is the bread of life it is really quite simple, feast on his teachings, He wants us to understand that beyond a physical hunger, man has a different kind of hunger, we all have this hunger, a more important kind of hunger that cannot be satisfied with ordinary food.
It is the hunger for life, the hunger for eternity that only He can satisfy because He is the bread of life. The true meaning of our earthly existence is to be found at the end, in eternity, being open to meeting Jesus every day of our lives will illuminate our lives and give meaning to small gifts, sufferings and preoccupations.
And quoting from the Gospel of John, Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst”.
    By bread of life, Jesus means the teaching that he is, by what he says, how he acts, and in fact, who he is, the Word of God. Jesus is the Word spoken by God, who reveals God to us in the most complete way possible, that we come to know God when we hear this Word who is Jesus, accept that Word into our minds, our hearts, our spirit, and let that Word begin to change us. When we enter into a relationship with God through Jesus, just as a relationship with any other person, it will change us, so that's what will happen if we believe in Jesus and accept him as the one that God has sent, the one who reveals God to us.
    So to close this up I think that true faith does not come by trying to understand the deeper doctrines of the church or trying to unravel the mysteries of God but to simply follow Christ, do and be like He was, nurture our spiritual mind through Him, it is the simpler part of faith that will help us grow and to be full of the spirit and will endure us in all of our troubles, it will edify us and sanctify us.
   My testimony to you today is this; when your heart is troubled and your mind becomes clouded, when you think that you have become cut off from God's pressence and the spirit has left your heart go back to the basics, go back to Jesus Christ, remember that it is through Him that our minds and our hearts can again be purified and unclouded. When you do this and feast on Him, the bread of life, the Light of Christ will begin to illuminate the way back to Heavenly Father.  These thoughts I leave with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.