I want to get a little more into why outsourcing our food is a bad idea. What it looks like. For some of us, it is a no brainer. It's the ones who seem to be really busy, and heavily involved with other things, or just those that do not like change, or the worst, those that have a faith for their health, food, sustenance other than in God.
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Isaiah talks about fasting, unjust fasting. Fasting with the wrong purpose. Dieting, a modern term, if you will. Christians live on this plain of knowing what they should not be eating (myself included), and shrugging their shoulders, mentally checking off more time in their workout session, while not considering that these inhibiting impulses might be the Holy Spirit. We operate like food and where we get it, and who is exploited providing it, is entirely our business, what this passage tells us, is, that it's not. We try to balance ourselves on this tight rope of what diet we going to try next, kidding ourselves into thinking "we are released" if we had 1 coke instead of 12. It's arduous. Unreal. No wonder we are suffering from chronic illness. We haven't surrendered our food. We just take granted Walmart will be open tomorrow. "Oh great Walmart, thou hast provided.." If we are honest, that is what our prayer should be at night.
Fasting was always intended to cause us to pull back from food, AND to put our dependence back on the Lord. This passage tells us that by fasting we invoke justice. What???? Why? Because if we don't return our dependence to the Lord, concerning all things, we outsource it to something else. That something else is ALWAYS SINFUL, always prone to corruption. Our debt, our entertainment, our food, American Christians have outsourced. Suddenly dependent on something, someone other than God. Mike Ramsey is one of my heroes who went right for the jugular and told us, "hey, a lifestyle of debt is sinful." I want to make a case that putting our health and food choices in the hands of something or someone else's opinion and not the Lord's, because we aren't asking Him for guidance in these areas, is sinful as well.
Yes, we should know where our food comes from. Over and over, in scripture, what is produced, what is food, is hands on involvement. It lessons the possibility for exploitation, doesn't it? So, in scripture, thanking the Lord for what He has provided is not lip service.
Now, this weight is overwhelming, if you haven't already written it off. This weight, we can't carry. This weight is meant to be in God's hands. That's the point. If you are ready to yield your way of doing things, to yield your next diet options, the source of your food, all of it, that's exactly where you need to be. If you have gone round and round with chronic illness, if you are sick and tired of diets, if you are ready to yield and to ask God to help you. That is exactly where we need to be.
To sit at the table and know where your plate full of food came from. Had to be local because it'll go bad. Simple. Praise the Lord. What is on this plate will actually help my children grow. There are only three ingredients in these chips, corn, salt, and oil. All food. Simple. Praise the Lord. What is on this plate is not self indulgent but GOOD, very good. God's kind of good. Simple. Praise the Lord. You can praise Him.
I am trying to wet the appetite and prepare you for obvious things that Weston A. Price discovered. They are so obvious but we aren't ready. I thought about why, and this passage makes it clear to me that it's because we are entangled. Our food and dependence on it, is outsourced. But there is hope. You are not condemned in Christ. When we turn our dependence on food back to the Lord. We will ask questions. Our desire will be to honor the Lord in this area and a broad place will open. Answers will come, and justice will be done. Your plates will be full, in the name of the Lord, with good food.
I am not here making up rules for you to follow. I don't know if I follow any of Mike Ramsey's rules, except for maybe envelopes for my kids. This can be applied in so many glorious ways, but with the same focus. Some moms can just change the course for her kids and see their health restored. I started taking gluten out of my first born's diet. we are all probably going to take wheat out. It will probably clean up some of my singing issues. Really. My sinuses are bad. Some will be compelled to investigate farmers markets with a little more zeal. I know that I went to Weston A. price meetings a total of two times, and the sense of community and involvement with my food source was awesome. I learned so much in just the two times I went. A lot of them were Christians. I even heard a local artist sing a song to the Lord. It was incredible. All that to say, our problems are different, our changes won't be the same. Our solution is the same, not Walmart, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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