Immanuel Lutheran Church - Benson

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”
Psalm 34:8

Just so you know, I love food.  I especially like a real good cherry pie.  And candy.  And chocolate.  Yeah, good food.

Are you hungry yet?  Good.  Go get something to eat.  Something really tasty, something that you really, really like.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait here.

Okay.  Now this treat that you’re eating, this meal that you gave yourself, came from somewhere.  It may have been organically grown in your backyard, cared and cultivated by you alone.  Or it may have come from a factory, undergone many chemical processes, with all kinds of additives and preservatives, shipped half-way across the world until you bought it in the grocery store, brought it home, put it in your pantry, forgot about it until now, when you finally ate it.  Or it could be somewhere in between.

But this food came from somewhere.  You didn’t magic it up, create it out of nothing.  You planted a seed, toiled over the dirt, or you worked hard to earn money so you could buy it, while someone else worked hard to farm the land, making the base food stuffs that you are eating.

But the food came from somewhere.  And ultimately, whether you’re eating food you grew yourself or food you bought pre-packaged, we can trace the roots of that food back to God.

God gives life to humans, animals and even plants.  God makes the plants grow in their seasons, makes the rains come (or the snow as it is today).  Food comes from God, through other people, and finally to us.

This, I believe, is the real reason why we like food so much.  Food is a sign, for me, that God loves us.  God created us, and in fact created us to consume food.  Now, food doesn’t have to taste good (as you would know if you tried some of my failed recipes).  But food nourishes us, helps us grow as God has designed us to grow.  But God has made us to like certain foods, has made foods to taste good to us, and given us these foods to enjoy!

What a blessing food is for us.  Taste your food again, and see how good God has been to you, to provide you with this delicious food.  Taste and see that the Lord is good!

Thanks be to God!
Pr. Bryan

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.