Milk is a perfectly suitable food for a newborn in the beginning stages of life, in fact it’s all that they need to grow and thrive. As the child grows older, a diet that is more varied is needed to provide further nourishment to sustain health and growth. If you tried to feed a person strictly milk into adulthood, they would become severely malnourished and permanently stunted in their growth.
So too in spiritual matters; when we were children we could thrive on the “milk” of the gospel. However as we mature spiritually we should be partaking of a more varied diet that can further nourish and sustain us. For this to occur we must awake and arise and pursue what it is that we need to in order to sustain our growth.
Seeking out the “meat” of the gospel is not looking beyond the mark like the Jews did (see Jacob 4:14) since when the mark came to them, they killed Him. Pursuing the meat of the gospel is the mark and that mark is Christ. It is Christ and what he wishes to give us. We should also not get discouraged when only milk comes from our church leaders in public discourses. The meat of the gospel is to be pursued on an individual basis and is not something that needs to be incongruent with maintaining association with the church. No criticism needs to be offered to those drinking milk or to those only offering milk. As we read in the revelations, no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by us but by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile (see D&C 121). The Savior said it beautifully when he taught:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: forwithout me ye can do nothing. (John 15, KJV)
Eating “meat” by coming unto Christ will invariably result in painful purging and pruning by the Father but it is for our own good so that we may bear more fruit. Trials and sacrifice are what we signed up for in coming to this fallen world.
Joseph Smith also taught that:
“the things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God.” (TPJS pg. 145)
We could be seeking after the mysteries of God. We could be seeking for greater light and truth from the Author of Salvation, who is Christ. This is the message of the restoration which began almost 200 years ago. If we don’t awake and arise and contemplate our own personal awful situation (instead of finding fault in others) we will be just as spiritual stunted as one would be who attempted to live just on just milk for physical nourishment.
Consider the wise counsel of Paul in his letter to the Hebrews:
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. – Hebrews 5:12-14, KJV
Even if you are tired of drinking milk, there is no need to point the finger at others who need it or at those who are providing it; but go and do, awake and arise, hearken and obey and become. May I suggest that the meat that we need is in plain view and is contained in the scriptures, the inspired utterances by the servants of the Lord and from the Lord himself.