On any given day, we think a lot about our physical well-being.
Jesus knows that we need food to live, and that we tend to be anxious if we don’t receive it in a timely way. For this reason, it is the first of the things that we request for ourselves in the Lord’s Prayer.
This petition is rooted in God’s promise, as Psalm 34:10 says, “The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.”
God gives what is essential for life, from food to drink, from oxygen to sunlight, from footwear to clothing.
And at each of these gifts, we can gratefully pause.
Take clothing, for example, perhaps a favorite woolly sweater, or a pair of sturdy shoes which have accompanied you on countless walks in the woods—thank God for how He has provided these things.
As Gordon Wilson notes, “Perfunctory prayers occur when we don’t see God, His creation, and the human secondary causes He has ordained to cultivate, harvest, and bring these blessings to us, i.e. farmers, ranchers, loggers, carpenters, clothing manufacturers, employees in the produce or meat section of the grocery story, chefs, cooks, etc.”[1]
But when we are thankful for these ordinary gifts and how they have come from his good creation to us, God is praised.
When we acknowledge the Father’s goodness in a cup of tea, some chocolate pudding, and our PB&J sandwich, then [2]:
Every bit of existence, including our eating and drinking, is like an ongoing hymn.
Or as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
Have you enjoyed food and drink today to the glory of God? Has your eating and drinking been like a hymn of praise?
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[1] Gordon Wilson, A Different Shade of Green: A Biblical Approach to Environmentalism and the Dominion Mandate (Moscow, Id.: Canon Press, 2019), 25.
[2] A. William DeJong, Eucharistic Reciprocity: A Practical Theological Inquiry into the Virtue of Gratitude (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2019), 241.