Not Breaking Bread
If I asked you, what the three keys to survival are, what would your response be?
Pause and think about it.
My money is on some variation of food, water, and shelter. The three essentials in our lives that we drastically take for granted. Any kind of food at our fingertips, gallons of water pouring from our faucets every day, and shelter that we complain about paying for, i.e. “there goes another mortgage payment”.
We’re still praying over our meals, and asking for guidance over important decisions. Things like relationships, career choices, or maybe where to live.
Unlike these heavy hitter decisions, we don’t necessarily talk to Jesus about the keys to survival. Specifically our diets. If we consider survival important (which we do), perhaps we should.
A dive into the Bible.
The book of Daniel, in the Old Testament starts by telling us a story of a boy whose home of Jerusalem is taken over by King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, among other Jewish boys, was selected to be a royal captive. In the selection process the king required, if a boy were to be chosen he must be versed in every branch of learning and gifted with knowledge and good judgment. If the young men fit these requirements they would then go through the king's conversion program, meant to completely submerge them into Babylonian culture. The boys would train for three years in this program and be given a diet of the king’s choosing, specific amounts of food and wine. After this they would be fit to enter the king’s service.
During Daniel’s training he asked the steward for a different diet.
“‘Please test us for ten days on a diet of vegetables and water,’ Daniel said.” Daniel 1:12
Then the outcome.
“At the end of the ten days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king.” Daniel 1:15
There are twelve chapters in the book of Daniel but our journey ends in the first. Fast forward some twenty-five hundred years and Daniel’s request to eat vegetables has become a modern day diet challenge, known as the Daniel Fast.
Consists of:
- Whole Grains
- Fruits & Vegetables
- Legumes/Beans
- Nuts & Seeds
- Oils for cooking, olive, peanut, or canola
- Water
Avoiding things like:
- Meat
- Added sugars
- Refined carbohydrates
The funny thing? It was never about the food for Daniel.
He wasn’t caught up on what he was eating due to dietary restrictions or hitting his macros. It was spiritual and religious. What the king had to offer would have defiled him, deemed him unclean. To eat these things would contaminate his heart. So instead the boy who had just been taken captive, doesn't give in and finds a way to serve God even in his circumstances.
This one story in the Bible paints a perfect picture of eating with purpose.
Where has that gone?
Food is a gift from God and at times we squander it. We eat while we’re scrolling, in the car, at the desk while we’re working. Our food is just fuel for our next task.
“Then God said, ‘Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.’” Genesis 1:29
Not only are we eating without purpose, we’re eating alone. Data collected by the World Happiness Report shows that roughly 26% of American Adults eat every meal alone. Almost doubling in the last twenty years.
We’re disconnected, and not breaking bread plays a role in that. Making time to eat together isn’t about the food, it's about purpose and connection. If we’re cutting into that and just eating to eat, when are we making time for that lost connection?
It's not a coincidence that something so important, a gift from God, a key to survival, has a significant spiritual meaning attached to it.
Kinship, AKA togetherness.
When we eat alone, eat without purpose, we cut into our relationships with friends, family, Christ, and maybe even ourselves.
