Feeding the Family

Proverbs 31:14

New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.

Mmmmm...... Food! Have you ever stopped to think about what a gift food is? God could have made us so we never needed to stop and fuel our bodies. But we do need to. Several times a day in fact. Well then, he could have made food a very mundane thing- same old, same old. But He didn't. Food can smell delightful and taste delightful and look delightful and food is a GREAT way to bless your family.

Have you ever thought about it that way? I know sometimes it's easy to get bogged down with the inconveniences of food. You have to decide what your family will eat. You have to plan which day you are going to eat it. You have to make a grocery list. You have to go fetch the food. And in that process, you have to fight off cravings and urges and marketing traps to make healthy, affordable choices. And you still haven't cooked anything yet! The task can seem unbearable.

Although, cumbersome, let's try to think about providing food for our family as a joy. The past paragraph might lead you to believe that cooking overwhelms me. Sometimes it does, but mostly I love it. It's by far my favorite chore- because at the end of it, you get to eat : )

Whether you love cooking or hate it, whether you work full time outside the home or in, there are a few things we want to remember as we provide food for our families.

- Make it a blessing, not a chore. How can you incorporate your husband's favorite meal into this week's plan? What can you do to surprise your child when they open up their lunchbox? Who can your family reach out to this weekend by inviting over to dinner?

- Healthfulness promotes holiness. I don't think serving your children donuts for breakfast, or McDonald's for lunch, or popcorn for dinner is a sin. (Maybe if it was all in one day...) We don't want to be legalistic, but we do want to be healthy. Because, the truth is- when we're healthy we have energy for things God wants us to do. Our husbands need to be healthy so that they can provide for our families and lead us well. Our kids need to be healthy so that they can play and learn about God's world. We need to be healthy so that we can serve our families well. God gave us bodies to house our spirits and His. We need to take care of them so that we can do His work well.

- Recruit little hands. Believe it or not, someday your 2 year old little girl or 10 month old little guy is going to be living on their own and will need to eat 3 times a day. Now is the time to be teaching them, little by little, how to thank God for their food, how to eat healthy, how to bless others with something their little hands have made. Teach your children- boys and girls- how to use food to bring God glory.

I'd like you to think about that as you prepare dinner tonight- be in from scratch, or a box or a drive-thru- that feeding your family is a task that you can use to bring God glory. Now, how cool is that?