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Food


 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. (Genesis 9:3)

           Housekeeping! For those who wish to pitch fits because Christians do not abide by Jewish dietary restrictions, here is an Old Testament verse that says that we are free to eat any kind of plant or animal we see fit to eat. God will give instructions to Moses about what the Jews are allowed to eat, but He never restricts Gentiles in this regard. 
          With that out of the way, today’s topic is near and dear to many hearts. It’s been the subject of my prayers off and on for years. Even back in Eden, God provided food. Here again, He’s providing food. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” For some folks, food isn’t a big deal. For others of us, it’s a beloved, unwanted god. 
         For some people, the answer to the problem of food is to declare specific foods to be bad. Don’t eat carbs. Don’t eat fat. Don’t eat salt. Do eat like a caveman. Don’t eat processed. That seems to me to reject what God said here. He has given it all to us. We shouldn’t misuse it, but we shouldn’t demonize it either. 
          What comes to mind as I read this passage, and as I think about God providing our food and our relationship to food is the idea that food needs to be kept in its proper place. I tend to cook food in bulk so I can pull my dinner out of the freezer, defrost it, mic it and take it to my office to eat while I’m doing something else, without a lot of thought about anything but getting on with what I’m doing. What would happen if I took time to acknowledge, very careful, and clearly, the proper gratitude, and the proper relationships involved? What if I didn’t just “say grace” but properly asked God’s blessing on the food instead of looking to the food for blessing (enjoyment)? I don’t know. I’ll give it a try.

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