This is a great question, and one I've not yet seen on SI!
A balanced diet is necessary for both physical and spiritual health. Severe lack of an essential ingredient, or too much of another will cause ill-health.
However, a healthy human body is very adaptable, and able to adjust what nourishment it receives by making use of what is eaten in the most efficient way. Our bodies process the food thoroughly and get rid of any over-excess of one ingredient. Our bodies even deal with small amounts of poison very efficiently. If we are lacking in a particular essential our bodies make the best use of what little is available, and only become ill if the shortage is really severe.
We can even adjust to digest foods we haven't been used to if they are introduced gradually. The traditional Esquimo diet for example was mostly fat. Those of us raised on a different diet would become very ill if we went straight onto their kind of food, because the huge fat overload would overwhelm our processing ability. But if the amount of fat was gradually increased our bodies would adapt.
We even find ourselves craving foods containing an ingredient our bodies need, or substances that contain medicines when we are sick. For example, if we eat too much salt we become thirsty, which helps removal of the excess.
We had a cat who suddenly started eating coal. It turned out he had kidney problems, and something in the coal (sulphur?) helped. When working abroad I spent a week away, eating the local diet that was rather low in protein. On my return, though normally not much of a meat eater, I couldn't get enough of it.
And everyone knows what pregnant women can be like with cravings!
I'm sure that this can be used as an analogy of a healthy spiritual life also. A sick mind or body will sometimes crave wrong food, as will a sick spirit - but that's not the norm.
If possible, find a church where there is good Bible teaching, but don't be limited to that. listen to a variety of good sermons, or read good books, from various points of view. (And/or join a forum such as SI!)
Whether "eating at home" or "eating out", a healthy spirit will soon learn what is good and what is not! Especially if we study and follow the "recipe book"!
As we study the Scriptures, after a while we get to know the right "smell and taste" of what is His provision and what is not. How many of us have encountered teaching that maybe [i]sounded[/i] OK, but made us uneasy? And how often did it turn out on investigation that there really was something wrong?
Jesus said that we feed on HIM. Let's seek Him, obey HIM, and eat that which we sense is from HIM in any teaching we hear, and we won't go too far wrong.
Blessings
Jeannette
