An Encouraging Word- What Are You Choosing To Eat Today?

An Encouraging Word- What Are You Choosing to Eat Today?
October 26, 2025


In the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the villain, Voldemort , decided as a young man attending Hogwarts School that he would do whatever it took to have power and control over people. He took people’s lives. He destroyed families. He destroyed even the friends that tried to reach out to him. Sounds similar to Satan in the Bible, huh?   In the end all that was left of his soul was a whimpering disgusting withered shell of a child, dying . Unloved. Unwanted. Alone. 

Harry finally is able to see the pitiful wasted soul that Voldemort has become after their standoff at the end of the book. This evil figure that caused so much pain, destruction, and fear lay defeated and dying.  This may seem like an unusual example to use, but  I  believe that J.K. Rowling’s description perfectly illustrates the condition of our souls without Christ. Let’s read an excerpt of this passage together. 

“He stood up, looking around.  Was he in some great Room of Requirement?  The longer he looked, the more there was to see.  A great domed glass roof glittered high adobe him in sunlight.  Perhaps it was a palace.  All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the midst…

    Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear domed glass ceiling.  It was quite empty.  He was the only person there, except for-
    He recoiled.  He had spotted the thing that was making the noises.  It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath. 
    He was afraid of it.  Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it.  Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment.  Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it.  He felt like a coward.  He ought to comfort it , but it repulsed him.
    “You cannot help.”
    He spun around.  Albus Dumbledore was walking toward him, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.  
    “Harry.” He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged.  “You wonderful boy.  You brave, brave man.  Let us walk.”
    Stunned, Harry followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child lay whimpering, leading him to two seats that Harry had not previously noticed, set some distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling.  Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and Harry fell into the other, staring at his old headmaster’s face.  Dumbledore’s long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything as he had remembered it , and yet…
    “But you’re dead,” said Harry. 
    “Oh yes”, said Dumbledore matter of factly.
    “Then….I’m dead too?”
    “Ah,” said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly, “That is the question, isn’t it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not.”

From:  Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York, NY :Arthur A. Levine Books.


What did you have for lunch today? 
A hate filled sandwich? 
A carton of anger?
A dish of sorrow?
Unforgiveness with ranch dressing?
 A snack cake of pain? 
A juice box of fear?


One evening, a Cherokee elder was teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. This battle that goes on between the two wolves is inside us all.  One wolf is Evil. He is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is Good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”

Wisely, the grandfather simply smiled and replied, “The one you feed.”

 There is a fight going on inside of each of our hearts and minds.  Do you feel that restlessness in you? Do you feel the war for your affections, for your attention, for your minds?


So I ask you the question today- What are you feeding your heart and mind?
Are you feeding it life and truth or are you feeding it death and lies? 

 I read a quote this week that said . “ We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry”. 
When we are starving , we will take whatever is given to us and we will consume it.
 Are you starving your heart and mind? 
Are you choosing to consume lies because your heart is hungry?
Choose to feed it the truths of Scripture! 
Let the beautiful words of life found in the Bible become your sustenance!


Scriptures to Hide in our Hearts:

Living Water- John 4: 7-30
7A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.b The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30They went out of the town and were coming to him.


Bread of Life- John 6:41-51
41So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me-- 46not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.


Psalm 34: 8
8Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!


Songs to Encourage You:
There is A Fountain (Filled With Love) (Shane and Shane)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXx558v5eik&list=RDgXx558v5eik&start_radio=1

Fill Me (River Valley Worship)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxnEFolX-Ns&list=RDTxnEFolX-Ns&start_radio=1

Is He Worthy? (Chris Tomlin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkRiYsTN7KY&list=RDgXx558v5eik&index=2



Let me challenge you today to examine your heart , to examine your mind. 
 Is your heart hungry?
 Is your mind hungry? 
What are you choosing to feed it? 
Are you choosing to eat lies instead of truth?
The enemy will always feed us lies and we will never be satisfied. 
Christ will feed us with living water, the bread of life, and salvation. 
Choose wisely !


Praying for you this week! You are loved beyond measure!