John 4:31-35 –
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
In yesterday’s post I shared about the woman that Jesus met while His disciples were in town buying lunch. When they came back with food, the conversation above took place.
Foodie – “a person having an enthusiastic interest in the preparation and consumption of good food”
I love food. I love the smell of it, the taste of it, the anticipation and even the thought of it. I love how it brings people together, how it fills them up and how it appeals to so many of their senses. I love that it fulfills a need but also satisfies a desire.
Sometimes I think I spend a little too much time thinking about food. Especially the sweet kind. Funny thing is, no matter how many times a day I eat it, I never get tired of or bored with food. There are so many ways to prepare it, ways to creatively serve it. (Although I would still rather eat it than fix it, unless its first ingredient is sugar! What can I say? I’m a baker, not a cook :-))
But Mark, my husband, enjoys food at a whole new level. He truly is a foodie. He loves to study recipes. He makes deeply satisfied noises when he eats and uses hand motions when he even just talks about food. He loves the planning of big meals and lives to discover new bbq ideas. For him, food is a celebration, a special event, a way to serve others.
Food is a necessity to life. It’s also a joy to the body and soul. No wonder Jesus said that His “food” was “to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” It was what was necessary for life – it’s what brought us life! It was also His joy to do what His Father asked of Him. It was what gave His life purpose and meaning. Not that the things required weren’t difficult (dying on a cross, hello?) but they accomplished something so beautiful that it was a dish He was willing to swallow.
Even when Jesus was fasting for 40 days, He feasted on “doing the will of Him who sent me.” When He was physically at His weakest with hunger, He resisted temptation by holding onto the nourishment of scripture and clinging to its truth. Because His food was “to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.”
And as He went to the cross and was given bitter vinegar to drink before His last breath, He still held the morsel of “food” – God’s will for His life, which was ultimately death. And His last words? “It is finished.” His last “meal” was eaten as He died, where He “finish(ed) His work.”
I want to crave God’s will for my life the way that I crave food, the way Jesus did. I want to hunger and thirst for what He asks me to be and do. I want it to be the one thing that truly fills me up. That gives my life purpose and meaning and delight. I want to play with my “food” – discover new ways to work with it creatively. When it comes to God’s desire for my life, I want to be a real “foodie”.
Matthew 5:6 – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
