Eating Your Way to Healing, Health and Wholeness

Exodus 23:25-26 (MSG)
^25-26 “But you—you serve your God and he’ll bless your food and your water. I’ll get rid of the sickness among you; there won’t be any miscarriages nor barren women in your land. I’ll make sure you live full and complete lives.

 Disclaimer: This post is not about a new diet plan. Diets rarely have lasting results because they depend on our willpower. And, our willpower is iffy at best; it usually depends on our emotional frame of mind at the moment.  God, however, has provided a way for us to enjoy the food we eat and experience wellness as we eat. The way is found by beginning each meal by “saying Grace.”

Saying Grace is about expressing our thanks to God for the meal before us. (Sidebar: And, for those who don’t say grace because you are always thankful and God knows how you feel, here’s a question for you… “Do you as a parent like it when your children express thanks to you for something you’ve given to them or is it enough that you just ‘know’ they are thankful?  Just saying…)  There are two elements we should always keep at the forefront of our minds when saying Grace. First, we are giving thanks for the food God provides, with the realization that a large part of the world goes to bed hungry. We are not to feel guilty about that, but it is indeed a reason to be grateful. The second reason is a very practical reason we should start our meals by saying Grace. We should be saying Grace because we live in a fallen world and the fallenness taints everything found in the world, including the food we eat. In the world much is made about organic foods and the benefits that come from food grown naturally. Yet, no matter how the organic food is grown – without pesticides, without artificial fertilizers – it is still grown in fallen soil.  This is not bad news for believers when we realize that God has made a way for us to enjoy whatever we eat (in moderation – 1 Cor. 6:12). Saying Grace not only involves being thankful for the food before us but also acknowledging that we need God to protect it.

There is a third perspective for saying Grace that many believers may not even be aware of. Saying Grace is a way of receiving one of God’s many Covenant promises.  According to Exodus 23:25-26, God has promised to bless our food and water and take sickness and disease out of our midst. The word “bless” is a covenant term. One definition of “bless” from Noah Wester’s 1828 Dictionary is “to set apart or consecrate to holy purposes; to make and pronounce holy.” When we say Grace, we should do so with the realization that God has sanctified our food and water, and, in this fallen world that is indeed good news.  When we get revelation of this scripture as a covenant promise, saying grace becomes our acceptance of this promise. As with any promise from God, the only thing He asks of us is that we receive His gift.

You might be thinking, it’s not all that easy because the scripture above also says that the promise is contingent on “serving God,” and we know that we fall short there.  However, that’s why Jesus came; to fill all those areas in our lives where we fall short. Putting this all together, it comes down to this.  We don’t have to say Grace, we get to say Grace.  When we do, we are honoring God and His faithfulness to us. So, the next time you sit down to a meal and say Grace, realize that you have put yourself in a position to receive the Blessing of God on your meal and there is no diet plan anywhere that can provide the results that It brings!

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