Is My Eating Worship or Idolatry?
Every day, many times a day, I have had to wrestle with my self-indulgent nature to eat what is good and in the amounts that are healthy for me. I have had many days of wise and appropriate eating and I have had seasons of discouraging failure—and it really is a life-and-death matter.
Today I finished preaching at chapel at Camp Barakel and I was walking with two of our grandsons to lunch and a helpful thought occurred to me.
I know that for me over-eating and eating the wrong things is usually an expression of idolatry. The times when I have been able to have self-control in my eating have been times when I consciously saw over-eating as the sin of idolatry—putting food in the place where only God should be.
When I eat the right things in the right portions and receive that food as a gift from God, it is an act of worship to eat. But when I eat the wrong things or even the right things in wrong portions then I am usually trying to get from food what only God can give. I’m looking to food for what only God can be.
As I walked to the dining room it occurred to me to ask of my soul this question through the day: Is this meal going to be worship or an indulgence in idolatry? Is this snack going to be an act of worship or sinful idolatry?
A Suggestion
As you plan your meals and before you eat bow your head and pray; “Lord, I want this meal to be an act of worship not an indulgence in idolatry.”
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4)
Have you found honey, eat only as much as you need. (Proverbs 25:16)
Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)
Eating can be idolatry, but it was meant to be an act of worship.
Ken Pierpont
Camp Barakel
Fairview, Michgian
