The food we eat becomes powerful fuel to keep our bodies healthy or to cause us health problems over time. We may tend to eat what we like and ignore food we don’t like. Eating is challenging for many of us because it is hard to balance too much food that we enjoy with other necessary food that we resist.
Ed, my old friend in Saskatchewan, has admitted to weighing in a couple of pounds heavier on his bathroom scales this summer. He asked me if I’m still waking a mile after supper. I could truthfully say that I have been walking a mile after supper each night. But, It seems I may need to walk a mile before supper also to keep my bathroom scales from protesting when I step on them.
Talking about our need to eat a healthy diet daily is a sure way to have people move away from you as fast as they can. As adults, we tend to believe we have a right to eat what we want but considering a healthy diet to help prevent health problems for oneself is well worth the time for those who are willing.
Beyond an argument is the truth that everyone needs food to live. Food is vital to our lives. But, unfortunately, starvation is a reality in many areas of our world, and with some who read this column. Starvation means suffering or death caused by a lack of food.
Food banks offer help to those who lack enough food to eat. Many of us have not gone hungry and may be unaware or indifferent to those who are hungry. May God forgive us and give us eyes to see beyond ourselves. May we learn to share, for many of us have extra food in our cupboards and freezers. There could be a time when we may need food to be shared with us because we have none ourselves.
As Christians, we believe God gives us our daily bread. He may allow us to work for it, but our food and very lives are by his blessings upon us. God would have us eat healthy food for our bodies and be ready to share our food with those who are hungry. God also desires us to feed on the living bread that came down from heaven.
In the sixth chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus said to those who wanted to make him their king, that they hoped to make him their king for the wrong reason. They thought that Jesus could feed thousands with just a little food if He became their king.
God does want us to have enough food to eat for our bodies, but God was and is concerned about us having Jesus as the living bread from heaven for our souls or spirits. Food that we eat like bread and fish can make us feel full and satisfied in our hunger, temporarily. Only Jesus can quench the hunger and thirst of our souls, eternally. It is the will of God the Father that everyone that looks on Jesus his Son and believes in him will have eternal life and will be raised by God on the last day. (John 6:40)
