Giving Us Richly All Things to Enjoy

“And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.’” (Genesis 1:29, 30)

The greatest thing to see here is God’s provision of food to all the animals and to all mankind. As God did at creation, so He does today: Our daily bread comes from the hand of God, and so we ought to look to Him for it in prayer and so we ought to give thanks for it every time we pop it into our mouths, roll it around on our tongues, and fill our fat little paunches with it. Food is our life, and with it God sees to it His creation is fed and thriving.

But God is not utilitarian: He did not make food merely for eating. He made food for enjoying. When God made our food for us, He made it taste good. Delicious. Joyous. Satisfying to the soul as well as to the body—to the whole man. Tongues didn’t have to have taste buds that sent pleasure messages—sometimes simple, sometimes intricate—to our busy brains. But they do, and in abundance. God is a rich man, and He knows how to be extravagant, and so He gave us richly all good things—including our daily food—for us to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17) Give God thanks, and live out your gratefulness sincerely by enjoying the food with which He feeds you.

It would appear on the surface of things that God made man “in his perfection” vegetarian, and there is actually no shortage of folks these days using this doctrine to teach vegetarianism as the superior way of life. Nobody loves vegetables and fruits and grains more than I. Give me a little butter for my sautéed veggies, melt a little of the same on fresh baked bread—and little heavy cream on frozen blueberries is to die for—but I can give a paean of praise for fruits and vegetables like no man. Yet Christians are not vegetarians.

God commands man to eat meat—yes, the red kind that comes from little lambs and cowsie-wowsies—just a few chapters later in the re-creation of the world (Genesis 9), and we are to give thanks for this just as we are to give thanks for the green stuff: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.” And if you think this is merely a concession for weak, sinning, fallen-from-grace man, it gets a little hard to explain the obedient meat-eater Jesus. Jesus ate the Passover lamb and gave thanks for it; Jesus ate fish as a resurrected Man—broiled, on the beach, at sunrise, waves licking the shore, smoke of the campfire mingled with the succulence—and He gave thanks for it. Vegetarians, as so many others, are not only missing out on God’s good gifts given for us to enjoy; they are, as so many others, swept up in that utterly vain pursuit of attempting to be holier-than-Jesus.

The heresy of vegetarianism is mentioned in the New Testament as one of those nasty “doctrines of demons,” “commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:1, 3, 4) Christians are omnivores, enjoying the carne with the herbs, giving thanks for it all as the great gift it is from God’s hand to our mouths.

“Great God in heaven above, we give thanks for a world filled with delicious food that not only keeps our mortal bodies revved up and running but delights the senses just as well. We thank You for giving the “green herbs” for mankind’s first course and for adding in the roast beef as the main later on. And we pray You would make us truly grateful, enjoying the rich gifts You give us each breakfast, lunch, and supper. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Third-Day Plantings

“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.” (Genesis 1:11–13)

I give God thanks for onions. And purple hull peas, juicy tomatoes, summer squash, and homemade bread. Sweet corn, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and fried okra. God be thanked for rice, steaming, with loads of butter and salt; a plateful of pasta, drowned in tomato and meat sauce; rolled oats or a bowl full of grits, accompanied by, among other things, warm toast, fresh from the oven, hidden comprehensively by blackberry jelly. I give God thanks for peach pound cake, frozen blueberries with a little cream poured over them, watermelon on a sweaty August afternoon, warm butternut squash pie on a crisp autumn day. I give God thanks for peanuts, pecans, pistachios, and almonds; for grapefruit, oranges, apples, and grapes; for figs, plums, nectarines, and cantaloupe. Fruits and “herbs,” each according to its kind, and the list isn’t even half begun. God saw that it was good. I see it too. Give thanks to God.

I give thanks for grass to mow and weeds to pull, for thistle and clover, for dandelions and even ragweed. I give God thanks for day lilies, Easter lilies, tulips, and irises; for petunias, pansies, periwinkles, roses, azaleas, daisies, begonias, and creeping flox. I give God thanks for the pine trees that built my house, for the oak and elm that shade it. I give Him thanks for dogwood and redbuds in the spring, maples and hickory and sweetgum in the fall.

And the list goes on and on and on. A whole world full of trees and bushes and grasses and vegetables and fruit and flowers and moss and seaweed and mushrooms, all reseeding themselves, generation after generation, year after year, blessing their Creator, and blessing those made in His image.

“Lord God, for all this, we give You thanks—for the provision, for the beauty, for the taste of good food, for the sight and smell of flowers, for the feel of the grass between our toes, for the sound of the wind in the leaves of the trees. Thank You, dear God, for the Tree of Life, the Bread of Life, the Vine in Whom You have made us branches, our Lord Jesus Christ. Plant us firmly in Him, run our roots deep into the soil of Your Word, and produce within us and through us the holy fruit of Your Holy Spirit, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.”