There’s a famous analogy in Hebrews 5:11-6:12. The writer compares new Christians to infants— helpless and relying on others to feed them the milk to sustain them. Since Jessi’s and my baby niece was born a little over a month ago, the image struck a cord with me; after all, I’ve seen the rigorous feeding schedule and the speed at which my niece can devour a bottle. Eventually, she’ll reach a place where she can feed herself, but at this point in her life, she needs her family.

With the endearing image of an infant still rattling in the readers’ minds, the author of Hebrews adopts a more stern tone. It seems there are members of the community who keep coming back to the milk when they should have graduated to solid foods by now— as if they’re laying the same foundation over and over again without ever building anything on it. The author openly calls these people lazy, and you can feel the frustration in these verses. To remedy this spiritual stagnation, Hebrews provides an invitation to deeper contemplation and understanding (which the author calls “meat” but our group deemed “cheeseburgers”).

As our group discussed these words, we reflected on our own journeys. Many around the table had experiences of being burned by a church or a pastor or an entire denomination. While everyone in the group last night identified as Christian, most of us had gone through periods of extreme doubt or separation from church. As such, we all had a similar sigh when we reached the part of Hebrews 6 where it says,

Because it’s impossible to restore people to changed hearts and lives who turn away once they have seen the light, tasted the heavenly gift, become partners with the Holy Spirit, and tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age.
(Hebrews 6:4-5, CEB)

That “impossible” hit us hard.
We had to sit with it and talk through it.
After all, each of us had to be “restored” in a way.
We ultimately found comfort going back to the milk/cheeseburgers analogy:

After a period of fasting, you don’t just go straight back to cheeseburgers; you have to start with milk. You have to ease your way back into the deeper waters. Similarly, when people are sick or recovering from illness, we don’t force-feed them cheeseburgers; we switch to liquids until their stomachs can handle the heavy stuff again.

When you’ve been recently hurt by church,
when you’re leaving a period of outright unbelief,
when you’re taking a chance on the whole Jesus thing again,
it’s okay to go back to milk for a time.
It may taste different;
it may even feel like you don’t need it;
but it’s a necessary step.
Then again, as this passage in Hebrews 5-6 tells us, we can’t stay on milk forever. Eventually, all of us are called to go deeper— whether that means taking on new responsibilities, deeper study, or taking a risk on a new community. The milk is there to help us, but it’s only one part of a much bigger journey.