One of the most famous explorers of modern history is Scott of the Antarctic. Sadly, Scott and his party died during their trip. But only recently have scientists begun to understand perhaps why they died. It seems they starved themselves to death while eating!

Sounds like nonsense doesn’t it? But it’s not. Scientists tell us that we need to take in about 6300-7500 kilojoules of food each day in order to survive. Now Scott and his party took in around 3 times the normally required amount of food – about 18000 kj each per day. You’d think that was enough, but it wasn’t. You see, when you’re doing really demanding work such as dragging sleds across the Antarctic you need around 42000 kj of food energy (or 6-7 times the normal amount) to survive. Scientists suggest that each member of Scott’s team, despite eating 3 times the normal food requirements, probably lost around 35 kgs. In fact they most likely starved to death!

You know, there are times in life when we’re like those Antarctic explorers. We’re faced with crisis and we need much greater levels of support, care and prayer than normal. And when our friends are going through those times we must expect that they will need greater servings our our love, care and prayers than normal, perhaps even 6-7 times greater than normal!

Alternate Application: Our spiritual life is often like this. We feel that when things are tough or busy that we can cut down on our intake of prayer, reflection and fellowship. Yet it’s precisely at these times that we need greater inputs if we are to avoid “spiritual starvation”

Source: Scientific info from Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s New Moments in Science #1