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By admin | February 5, 2010
Isaiah 49:10 “They shall not hunger or thirst…”
One day a couple of weeks ago, I woke up too late for breakfast and too busy for lunch. So, when I got to the apartment, I was really hungry. The only things I could find to eat were a cold sweet potato, baked onions, and oatmeal. Really, I love cold sweet potatoes, baked onions are good, and oatmeal is one of my staples during the winter.
I had everything laid out in front of me and was about to eat, when my mother called. Mom asked, “Dahling, what are you doing?” And I said, “I just prepared supper. I’m about to eat.” She said, “Has Averette cooked you dinner?” I said, “Averette’s in Spanish Fort. I made my own dinner.” I heard the trepidation in my mother’s voice when she said, “Honey, what are you eating?” I swallowed hard and said, “A cold sweet potato, a baked onion, and oatmeal.” There was a long pause and my mother said, “No field hand on the farm ate as poor as that meal. I didn’t raise you to eat a supper consisting of those foods. Every supper we ever had, Son, had a salad, a meat, two vegetables, bread, and a dessert. Why aren’t you eating that type of dinner?” I said weakly, “I happen to like cold sweet potatoes, onions, and oatmeal.” My mother said, “Does Averette know what you’re eating?” I said, “Well, no.”
I heard a click as Mother, without salutation, hung up the phone. Within fifteen minutes, my dialer ID reflected first - my wife, then my sister, and each of my daughters in order of their birth. My mother missed her calling as Paul Revere. Instead of “the British are coming,” she replaced it with “Do you know what Chip’s eating for supper?”
In actuality when you consider what most of the rest of the world eats, our culture is pretty fixated on “what’s for dinner?” On our planet, 40,000 children die each day from causes related to poverty and one billion people struggle to earn enough just to eat. The most common foods on our planet are beans and rice and a form of maize. Most of the world rarely eats meat and their diet is almost always monotonous. For a great portion of the world, a meal with a cold sweet potato, a baked onion, and oatmeal would be a feast.Perhaps every person in our culture needs to ask, “How can I help? What can I do to make a difference in world poverty?” As I look at the bigger issues of denomination, would it not be better for the Christians of the world to unite under the cause of world poverty rather than splinter over differences in practice? If the world Christian community could unite, poverty would have a better shot at being eliminated.
I think it is wonderful that my family cares what I eat. I love being loved. The real question is does the Christian community care about what the world has to eat for dinner. How can we make a difference in the lives of the 40,000 children that will die today and tomorrow and the day after?
Prayer: Dear God, give us some idea what to do with this monumental problem. Amen.
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Topics: The "Enough" Series |
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