Provision: Feasting on Goodness and Grace
Slushy watermelon sprinkled with fresh-picked mint. Ice chips and lavender syrup swirled through a cup of cold brew. Vanilla ice cream pooling around hot peach pie. Yogurt encircled by cardamom and crumbled pistachio. A buttery croissant leaving flakes on my fingers. Tender chicken blackened to perfection. Every one of these mouthfuls I can relive with vivid clarity—an instant connection back to places I’ve been—that café in Boston, a bustling Paris street, the boulevard over the bay, my Nana’s wood table—and people I’ve feasted alongside—dear friends, far-away family, even strangers.
What makes food such a powerful experience? Is it the way all five senses combine to stamp a moment to memory? We see heaping displays of color and texture lining a buffet or flooding a market stall. We feel the stickiness of syrup, the crusty ridges of a fresh-baked loaf, or the smooth glide of silverware across the palm. We hear the crunch of a cucumber or the spurt of a ripe plum in our ears. We smell the waft of simmering spices, the drifting smoke of a neighbor’s barbecue, a crockpot’s warmth welcoming us across the threshold. And, of course, we taste. Salty chocolate and sour grapefruit and sweet smoothies slurped up a straw. Spicy shrimp and bitter olives and savory bites of burger between our teeth.
Certainly, the shared enjoyment and sensory delight of a good meal imprints us deeply. It’s a yummy, beautiful, and satisfying gift to our days. But even more significantly, food fills our hearts so indelibly because it points us to a greater provision—the food that fills our souls.
A Table of Goodness
As the first table is set in the garden of Eden, God provides Adam and Eve not just the bare minimum for survival—maybe a few dry crackers and some sour fruit—but an abundance of tasty eats: “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen. 2:9). They are free to feast lavishly on God’s care and creativity, with but one exception—the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.[1] Everything else in this lush garden is wide open to their sensory exploration and enjoyment. No staleness. No spoilage. No scarcity. No stomachaches. Each bite is pure and pleasurable, just like everything else in God’s very good world.
This theme of God’s goodness, reflected through physical nourishment, continues throughout the rest of Scripture. Food and feasting are frequently intertwined with God’s blessing and favor upon his people.[2] His words are compared to sweet honey,[3] pure milk,[4] and life-giving bread.[5] His provision ushers in our joy: “wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart” (Ps. 104:15). Even the kingdom of God itself—that building climax of everything good in the story of redemption—is described as a grand wedding supper, the most tantalizing, satisfying spread we could ever imagine.[6]
So, when God wants to give us a picture of his own abundance, he often uses a metaphor of food to harness our innate appetites for lovely and filling things. To help us “taste and see” that he is good (Ps. 34:8)—that he is the clear and generous provider of everything our souls and bodies need: food, drink, truth, wisdom, fellowship, joy, life.
A Table of Grace
Despite all this outpouring of God’s goodness, though, the human heart repeatedly responds a bit like a toddler throwing food off the tray each night at dinner. We reject God’s provision with a resounding, “No.” In Eden, Adam and Eve bypassed God’s nourishment for the mouthwatering lure of sin, tasting instead a foulness and vacuous hunger where once there was only complete happiness and fullness in God. But even as he then exiles mankind from his garden of delights, God sets a new table for them in the wilderness—that of grace. He promises to provide a Messiah, who will cover shame, heal, and nourish souls again. Where one fruit blighted our world in sin, a new First-fruit—Christ Jesus—arrives in redemption. Not forbidden but freely offered. Poured out in death so that we could taste life.
In this, God shows us that he is both the provider and the provision. And once again, parallels to food help us understand and embrace this mystery. He is the true meal and the Living Water that our souls hunger and thirst for.[7] He is the wine and the bread that atones for our sin, that makes space for us at his table of communion once again.[8] He is the one who spreads a banquet for the desperate, serving “the choicest of foods” free of cost (Isa. 55:1-2, CSB). Because of grace, not only are our physical needs for provision met, but we as God’s children experience the soul-deep nourishment of salvation through Christ, now and for all eternity.
A Table of Gratitude
This awe-inspiring liturgy of goodness and grace becomes the backdrop for our own gatherings around the table—in Christian homes and church communities all around the world. This is the story we tell when we lick that last delicious crumb off the plate, raise a glass in celebration, or savor a perfect union of salty and sweet on our taste buds. We image the provision of God himself when we lift a spoon to a baby’s mouth, wash and chop vegetables for dinner, keep watch over the boiling kettle, or serve a decadent treat that lights up the faces of those we love.
God could have met our physical needs in a myriad of ways, but that he does so with pleasant and good food means something. He designed us to relish his provision, to linger long over tables of feasting and fellowship as we express heartfelt thanksgiving to the One it all points to. Yet in today’s grab-and-go culture, we feel the crunch to rush through meals, to throw together what’s most convenient, to take only a quick pit stop for fuel on the way to bigger and better activities. Schedules might necessitate this at times, but even then, God’s patterns of provision—both physical and spiritual—invite us to step back and approach our tables with greater intentionality and love.
Look for the grace that fills our plates in the dining room, even through seasons of fallow. Marvel a minute at a perfect stack of golden bananas in the grocery store, thanking the God who weaves order and harmony and sunshiny colors into our sustenance. Wonder as you drive by a field full of cattle or corn stalks or wind-whipped wheat, as the natural rhythms of God’s earth supply our needs again and again. Exclaim over flavors that dance and dazzle our senses as we play with a wonderful world of ingredients he’s given. Contemplate and celebrate the symbols of bread and cup—body and blood—that speak to a greater provision in Christ. Worship the God who meets us at tables of goodness and grace and bids us come pull up a chair.
[1] Gen. 2:16-17
[2] Deut. 32:13-14; Ps. 23:5; Ps. 36:8; Ps. 81:16; Prov. 3:10; Ecc. 9:7; Isa. 1:19
[3] Ps. 19:10; Ps. 119:103; Prov. 24:13-14
[4] 1 Pet. 2:2
[5] Deuteronomy 8:3; Matt. 4:4
[6] Isa. 25:6; Matt. 8:11, 22:1–14, 25:1–13, 26:29; Luke 13:29, 14:15–24; Rev. 19:6-9
[7] Matt. 5:6; John 4:14, 6:35, 6:57, 7:37
[8] Matt. 26:26; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor. 11:23-26
Reflection Questions
1. Are you ever tempted to elevate gift over Giver when it comes to food? How can you practically enjoy God’s goodness in a way that glorifies him?
2. How could mealtimes this week be an intentional reminder of God’s ultimate provision to you in Christ? List specific ways you might “taste and see” more of him as you sit down to eat.
3. Thoughtfully examine the motivations and mindset behind your day-to-day eating habits and choices. Are there ways you could flesh out the truth of the gospel more fully in this area?
Application Ideas
1. Plan a themed meal (i.e., Taco Tuesday or Green Food Night). To go all-out, consider incorporating costumes, fun accents, a family wait staff, or hand-made menus.
2. Try a blind-folded tasting flight: pick multiple varieties of a food item like yogurt, fresh apple slices, or even spices and see who can discern the differences or correctly identify the flavor. Talk about what eating is like without the use of one of your senses!
3. Invite your kids to bake something special with you (simple or elaborate). Get their help picking out recipes and buying ingredients and laugh at the extra dose of chaos, mess, and wonder it brings to cook alongside small chefs-in-training. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, let your kids experiment with their own concoctions!
4. Make God’s Word memorable by bringing food into your family devotions. Talk about the Bread of Life, the fruit of the Spirit, or the salt of the earth while eating those foods. See what it adds to your understanding of the text!
5. Collaborate with friends on a progressive dinner around town or the neighborhood (one “course” at each house). In the summer, you can keep it extra simple with lighter snacks or appetizers—popsicles at the park, berries by the bay, watermelon at the waterpark, etc!
6. Create a tasting log for sparkling water, iced tea, hot chocolate, smoothies, or whatever beverage your family enjoys and pretend you know what you’re talking about as you discuss things like sourcing, notes, flavor profiles, and mouthfeel.
