On Food.

I have a few friends who hold the line of thought that if they didn’t have to eat at different times of the day, life would be so much easier. They just don’t like eating. I mean, they like food, but they see eating as an inconvenience. I have no idea what they’re talking about. I love to eat. I love hearing new delicious endeavors that my friends have embarked on (most of which I’m too chicken, pun intended, to try!). Smelling savory meat, cutting fresh fruit, tasting tart yogurt is absolute bliss.

To our surprise, since getting married, my husband and I have become culinary nerds. This does not mean that we’re competent in skills by any means, but we somehow can’t seem to get enough of Master Chef, Iron Chef (new and old school), Hell’s Kitchen. We even put our laptop on the toaster oven to watch new episodes as we attempt new recipes. I’m on the tail end of finishing and drooling over reading Julie & Julia. So, yes. Nerds, I say! Josh has attempted and is perfecting the perfect wine reduction sauce over steak, I’m in the process of refining and doctoring a banana bread recipe (of which I burned last week) and yet we’re perfectly content curling up on the couch with a bowl of cereal for dinner. Hey, I’m a new student again; I can sometimes afford to be lazy sometimes! We’ve discovered also that Josh is more of an inventive pioneer than I, and I not as adventurous as I previously thought. I tend to stick to what I know. But alas, we just really like food.

But all of this has got me to thinkin’.

Food is good.

Food is a word.

Food is the word.

Food is the Word.

The Word is food.

You can eat, chew, consume, masticate, swallow, digest, burp your dinner.

You can eat, chew, consume, masticate, swallow, digest, burp the Word.

I had lunch with a dear friend recently and we grappled over the idea that though we knew the couple verses about how the Bible is something we can “consume”, we don’t really know how that is a reality in our daily lives.

So we started comparing how and when we eat things to how and when we consume the Word. It’s not very fluid. But you’ll get the picture.

Milk. Babies drink milk. I LOVE milk. 2% probably makes me more excited than it ought. Peter says, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Awesome! I can taste and see that God is good by drinking milk! Sure! He says this in context of doing this to rid yourself of the impure things in your life and comparing drinking milk to filling yourself with pure things. Fill yourself with the things of God. Pretty simple. Like babies. Okay babies aren’t simple. Whatever.

But then Paul says, “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Huh. So if you’re an adult and you’re drinking milk all the time, it might not be the most health-full thing for you. Milk is good, but you need other things in your life to keep you going.

Sometimes I think that I drink “milk” too often. There are people in my life who have been sucking on the spiritual bottle for too long, if ya know what I mean. We sometimes revert back to our old ways. I hope we can be an encouragement to each other to put down the bottle and pick up the fork.

Eating. We do this on a normal basis. We eat three-ish times a day. We equate this most often with a “daily devotion”. Do we have to spend time before school or during our 15 minute break or before bed for some intense Bible-reading? No. But like eating regularly, it sure is health-full. Pretty simple.

Hearing a sermon or going to a Bible study, could probably be classified as “eating” too.

Snacking. Apple slices, popcorn, a handful of chocolate chips, iced tea, [insert your favorite snack here]. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love a good snack. Research shows that snacking in moderation is really good for you.

To stay spiritually healthy, we should “snack” on the Word every so often. In between our “big meals”, little words of encouragement, verses, or “snacks” can keep us going when we’re feeling drowsy or dumpy.

Gorging. Have you ever been so hungry that you opened the fridge that even the box of baking soda looked good? For hyperbole’s sake, probably. But probably not. Once I was so hungry and lazy that I ate a whole bag of Lay’s barbeque chips. Now, those things are heavenly, but heaven is not what I felt like post-gorge. We get this way on Thanksgiving, too. We don’t eat much Wednesday, and then feel like dying Thursday evening.

Have you ever gone a really long time and had a stark realization of “CRAP! I really want/need/crave me some WORD!”? And then you proceed to read chapters upon chapters upon books upon… you get the picture…until you almost feel sick of it? I have. Our brains love what we’re reading, but it’s so much so fast that it can’t process it quick enough that we almost go into a coma. I’d submit that this method isn’t the best for you.

Burping. Or other forms of bodily noises. Take your pick. Sometimes stuff comes out of our bodies that we didn’t expect. Or want. Same thing happens when you feed yourself stuff other than the Word. Not that you shouldn’t read stuff that isn’t the bible. I’m definitely not saying that. I love supplemental reading. Plus, I can’t put down Julie & Julia.

But what goes in comes out. Sometimes I hate what comes out of my mouth in a split second because of something I’ve seen or heard. It can be graphic and gross. And can make those around you squirm. Paul gives a pretty clear reminder: “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” Shoot.

[You add your own food analogies. I would absolutely love to hear them!]

Dear friends, taste and see that the Lord is oh so good. Good for you, for you, and for your good.

Now let’s pick up our forks and dig in!