Food Lovers Unite!

I love food. I love cooking food and eating food. I love cooking shows, trying new recipes, practicing new methods of preparing food, and shopping for kitchen stuff. I know that "real men" don't cook, they only grill, so I have been told, but I also have heard in my life that boys don't play piano, wear pink, or carry their wife's purse. If that's the case, then I am not a real man. Oh well. No worries on my end.

Because of my intense fascination with food, I can look to the source of food, the very creator of food, and gather a few thoughts: First, God is incredibly lavish with His creativity to us! We could live our entire lives eating biscuits and water and be sustained and full for our entire lives. This has carbohydrates and sugars and the necessary nutrition for our daily lives. But given the opportunity to eat either a biscuit for appetizer, a biscuit for my entree, and a biscuit for my dessert or oysters Rockefeller for an appetizer, a medium rare Delmonico steak marinated all day in a flavorful marinade for my entree, and a strawberry balsamic reduction over vanilla ice cream, I would choose the latter every time. God had created some incredible foods and food combinations.

Another thought is that God has been awfully generous to us. Did you know you can eat dandelion leaves? Did you know that sweetbreads are not sweet, nor bread, but are a combination of animal organs, and it actually is rather tasty? Did you know that there is a coffee bean that starts out poisonous until a jungle animal, called the civet cat, eats it, digests it, and shall we say, expels it, making it not poisonous, able to be processed, and sold for about $150 a pound! God has put so many things on this planet that we can eat, and as we sit to thank Him for our meals, we should thank Him for His creativity and generosity!

The entire human race was plunged into sin due to food, remember Adam and Eve and the bite of fruit from the forbidden tree? Food is important to understanding our depravity, but it is also key in understanding our redemption! We have been invited to a feast of God in heaven, but that invitation comes at a price, namely the death of Jesus on the cross. As you sit at your meals today, think of the creativity and generosity of the Creator, as well as the coming feast. Do you have an invitation to this lavish meal? I hope you do!