When we understand how God sees food in our lives, we’re on the path to overcoming our own food issues and obsessions.
Food plays a very important role in our lives and in our relationship with God. And food plays a significant role throughout the Bible. From Genesis where Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit to send all of humankind into darkness to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation where everything is summed up…the role of food in our relationship with God is pervasive throughout the Bible.
In Deuteronomy 8:1-9 when God had led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into freedom, He tested their hearts with food to see if they would obey. With food!
God caused them to hunger and then fed them with manna. Why? To teach them that man doesn’t live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
God used food/hunger to discipline His children as a father disciplines his son. We know the story. In fact, we are the story–we’re not that different from the Israelites. In Numbers 11:4-6, the people complained about manna. They were neither grateful nor content. They obsessed over the food they’d had in Egypt: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. They whined about only having manna.
And this made God ANGRY! For 40 years, they had to eat manna to learn the lesson: that we don’t live by bread alone but by God’s words.
In Numbers 11:18, God gave them meat but He said that He would give them so much that they’d be sick of it. In Numbers 11:34, God struck them with a plague because they “craved other food.”
Jesus had his food encounters also. Hebrews 5:8 says that “although [Jesus] was a Son, He learned obedience through the things He suffered.” Jesus learned obedience. How much more so, must I?
And He learned obedience in the desert and in His ordeal on the cross. “Where Adam failed and fell, Jesus resisted and prevailed,” my study Bible notes say.
It intrigues me that both temptations dealt with eating. God gave Adam everything to eat with a dietary rule of NOT EATING one thing. Adam and Eve ate and fell. In Matthew 4, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert. After 40 days and nights of not eating, Jesus became hungry. Jesus responded to Satan’s temptations with the same Scripture that God used with the Israelites who complained about manna: “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
God doesn’t want us to use food to meet the needs that only He can!
Food cannot satisfy what our hearts hunger for.
We are unhealthy and overweight because we’ve looked to food to satisfy our heart’s cravings rather than looking to God.
I’ve often wondered why God made the one thing that could devastate humans’ relationship with their Creator about food. Why not sex? Money? Power? Murder? Why eating!?
Food is like breathing. I can’t avoid it. I can’t ban and resist it. I must have it to live. Every time I put a piece of food in my mouth, I am tested as to whether I will be obedient. I’ve often said that food issues are harder than drugs/alcohol issues because with those, you know you have to stop 100%. With food, we have to keep encountering it to live.
So what must we do? Wait for hunger. Wait for the physical signal that your body needs nourishment. And when you wait, you’ll discover all the reasons you want to eat when you’re not really hungry. And God in His mercy and grace will heal you in those areas. You’ll find God showing up in places that doughnuts and chips have filled in the past. You’ll encounter God in your needs and see that He is the only One who can satisfy what our hearts hunger for.
Eat for nourishment–stop when you’re satisfied. And, if like me, figuring out when you’re “full” is a hard thing to know–ask the Holy Spirit to tell you when to stop.
This is not about a diet; this is about learning to walk in the Spirit!
Will you lose weight? Yes, you will.
But think of everything you’re going to gain on this journey in your walk with God!
