Milk and Honey

If you think about it, the only reason we need food, is because God created us that way. He made the heavens and the Earth, He did not have to make us dependent on food for survival. And let's be honest, food is not about survival in everyday life. If we haven't eaten in four hours we may say, "I am starving to death," but this is obviously not true. Food is about so much more than survival, and I believe God wants it to be more than that. I think he wants us to enjoy food. But he also wants it to remind us that we are fragile and dependent on Him. (See previous blog post He>i for more on that.)

Exodus 3:7-8 The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.."

The promise land, over and over in the Bible, is described as a land FLOWING with milk and honey. That's good food. That's dessert, extra. It is not survival food, it is luxury food.

We are His children and He wants us to have joy in life. Not joy from food, joy from Him. He has given us good gifts, most of all His salvation through grace alone. So why do we lose control to food? (Of course it could be so many different things besides food for different people.)

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Do you think that means He wants us to sit on our couch and eat bon bons all day? Well, I wouldn't call that abundant life. I would call that a way Satan is trying to steal someone's abundant life. In the Bible we are called to action, called to work, called to serve, called to love. But we are also called to share the joy of the Christian life with others in fellowship. And when any good gift he has given us gets used outside of the way it is supposed to, we can become a slave to it. He rescued the Israelites from slavery and desired to bring them to a land of milk and honey. But it is easy to slip back into slavery. We are saved by grace yet, we are drawn to things that can enslave us again.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

The solution? Here it is:

Galations 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

This takes hard work. It takes prayer. It takes renewing of your mind in the way you see food. But God will do a work in you, he will transform you and your mind. This does not happen over night. He wants to teach you something.

I have had the kind of change in my life that came from God miraculously rescuing me from sin with alcohol and cigarettes. I have also now delt with these food and eating issues for many, many years. For a long time I couldn't understand why God couldn't just take the problem away, like he did with alcohol and cigarettes. But I know now, He has many ways of working in us. God has taught me so much and grown me in so many ways as I have failed again and again. I continue to go to Him in my weakness and over and over, He is my strength.