I am on vacation this week. See here. My guest today is Dr. Melanie Wilson (but I don’t know if she likes having that “doctor” part publicized.  Melanie is one of my newer blogs I read.  We have been following each other for about two months.   She actually has two blogs.  You can read about Melanie and her blogs at the end of this post.  Here’s Melanie:

I’ve been a member of the same church for more than twenty years. I’ve been a rush-out-the-door-after-church pew sitter, a staff member, and everything in-between.

I have to be honest and admit that there have been many, many times when I haven’t been happy with my church. In fact, I’ve shed many tears of frustration and disappointment.

At these times of disillusionment, I’ve shared my feelings with Christian friends. The advice given by many of them has been to attend church where I can be fed. In other words, I should go to a church where I can hear the Word preached in a way that helps me grow spiritually.

That sounded so good to me! I wanted to learn the things of God and be inspired the way I was when I read great Christian books and heard sermons on the radio. Why should I be starving for spiritual food in my own church? I had the go-ahead to look for a new church home, didn’t I?

There was a problem with this philosophy other than my husband’s reluctance to change churches and my love for so many of the people I worshiped with: it wasn’t biblical.

Never had Jesus told His disciples to go where they could be fed. In fact, God Himself is named the source of our spiritual food (Deuteronomy 8:3). I didn’t need to go to church to feed on the Word. I could and did do that at home and everywhere I went, courtesy of mobile devices that delivered challenging teaching.

But the truth about God being the source of spiritual nourishment isn’t what bothered me most about my well-meaning friends’ advice. It was what Jesus told Peter: “Feed my sheep.” Not “Go and be fed,” but “feed others.”

If I were a brand-new Christian, I would need spiritual nourishment for sure. But I’m not. I’m a woman God has blessed with a great banquet of spiritual food over the years. I’ve been fed. My calling is to feed the sheep.

And so now I ask the Lord how best to provide spiritual nourishment to His people and I am at peace. There are no more tears of frustration, only gratitude that I am allowed to participate in the Lord’s banquet.

How about you? Do you feel it’s important to find a church where you can be fed? Or are you blessed to be feeding the sheep?

Dr. Melanie Wilson is a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. She shares quick-to-read encouragement at The Inspired Day and sanity-saving ideas for Christians and homeschoolers at Psychowith6.