By Nick Shelton

Just this morning, I realized how much energy I consume in my life. When I mean energy, I am not simply referring to the amount of electricity I use in my apartment, but I am talking about the combination of work, transportation, movements, and exchange of goods that transpire just so that I can have a “normal life.”

For instance, this morning I had what I consider a simple breakfast – a bottle of water, a banana, and a piece of toast with Nutella (for those of you who don’t know - Nutella is a sweet spread that is like jam that is made of hazelnuts, chocolate, and sugar). On my walk to church, I analyzed the complicated process of getting all those ingredients on my breakfast plate.

• The toast – the slice of bread came from a multigrain loaf that consisted of wheat, rye, sesame seeds, millet, quinoa, and flax seed. The majority of the world’s wheat comes from America, so it would have needed to be shipped by boat across the Atlantic. Sesame seeds usually come from India, China, or the African nations – so this would have been an additional trip across an ocean. The other grains probably came from Britain, but since the Southeast portion of England which I live is not very agricultural, they probably came from various fields spread out in the country. The grains were then mixed at a mill then baked (even more energy). Then, shipped to the supermarket. Finally, I had to use more energy to actually make the slice of bread into toast.

• The Nutella – while most would consider jam to be a very easy food to make, this is not the case for this European spread. Nutella is made in Italy. The main ingredient is sugar – most sugar comes from the African countries and the Bahamas. The second ingredient is Belgium chocolate – so this would include cocoa beans which were probably grown in Africa, shipped to Belgium were the beans were made into chocolate, which would then have to be shipped to Italy. The other ingredient is vanilla which was probably grown in Madagascar. After all these ingredients are mixed they are shipped to a distribution center in Britain via boat, then finally a large truck delivers the jars to supermarkets.

• The Banana – Grown in South America, shipped across the Atlantic, passed through several distribution centers, until finally arriving at the supermarket.

• The Bottle of Water – Even the water I drank took a great amount of energy just to get to me! The water was taken from a natural spring in the Cotswold mountains about 75 miles away from me.

I hope my long illustration of my simple (yet very complex) breakfast did not cause you to lose interest. The point I was trying to make is how much energy we regularly consume in an entire day. If the above paragraphs just describe one small meal, think about what all it takes to deliver all your meals, to manufacture all your clothes, and to put together the computer you are using.

In our ordinary lives, we require massive amounts of energy to give use the things we want. However, most of us exert very little energy, especially when it comes to our spiritual lives. With all the energy we consume, one would think we could literally move mountains in our spiritual lives. But this is not the case, we devote very little of our energy to do what God desires.

Instead of being consumers of energy, I think God wants us to spread energy – that being to take the goodness that He has given us and use all our energy to spread this goodness to others. We have been given much in terms of energy; we should also desire to give much as well. The energy we consume should be used to energize our efforts in doing God’s will.

Luke 12:48 From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.