Bless The Food?
The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him. Nahum 1:7
Good – “Don’t forget the blessing.” Is that the common invocation before a meal in your house? I learned my kindergarten version early in life. “God is great and God is good, and we thank Him for this food.” Perhaps you have a similar child’s version tucked away in your memory. If you do, it’s time to change the perspective. It’s time to forget about blessing the food and begin to bless the Creator Who gave you the food, the tongue to enjoy it and the life that it sustains. If we understood the Hebrew word tov, we would certainly improve our thinking. So, let’s take a look.
Tov means “good” – not just spiritually good, but all kinds of good. It means fruitful (Genesis 41:22), morally correct (Psalm 37:27), pleasing (Esther 1:11), proper (Deuteronomy 1:14), plentiful (Judges 8:32), benevolent (2 Chronicles 5:13), profitable (Zechariah 11:12), and, in general, a state of well-being (all of Genesis chapter 1). God is good in all these ways.
Because God is good, life is acceptable. Imagine what life would be like without a good God. Chaos! Unpredictable! Risky! Terrifying! Without the goodness of God, anything could happen to you. But since God is good, even when terrible things happen, life is not beyond His control. In the darkest hours of my life, I need to know that God is good. I need to know that He is not a merciless tyrant or an evil trickster. When my hope is being dashed on the rocks of trials or the goads of disobedience, I need to know that God’s goodness means He has compassion toward me. The longer I live, the more I need to understand His forgiveness, His kindness and His mercy, because the longer I live, the more I confront the shipwreck of my past. God is good, even when life hurts.
God is good. That is the only real source of my hope. There are no guarantees in this world, but the goodness of God means that this world is not my final destination. I am comforted by the fact that a good God loves me and wants me to share an eternity with Him. My hopes in this life may run aground, but that is not the end of hope, because God is good.
Finally, since God is good, I know that He is intensely interested in my life now. He has not abandoned me, and He never will. He knows my pain and sorrow, intimately. And He cares. Can we really absorb this thought? Do we really believe that the God of all creation is thoroughly good? How would life change today if I truly embraced the goodness of God, if only for a moment?
