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…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. -John 10:10
Over at Colorstorm’s blog, I rather shamelessly snatched a comment from the peanut gallery, busy attempting to argue against God that asked with complete nihilism, “what did you eat today, a dead plant or a dead animal?”
All in good humor here, but first off, who is cooking for this poor man? I mean seriously, imagine if your food came and your first thought was “oh great, a dead animal with a side of decaying plant matter.” That is downright criminal. Sad, too.
Call me crazy, many people do already, but I eat lovely things, like diced peppers and sautéed chicken or barbecued spare ribs and scalloped potatoes. Today I had a piece of banana bread still warm from the oven with bits of walnuts and a crumb topping.
This comment captured my attention however, because I’ve spent the past few weeks pondering the kingdom of heaven and thinking of new ways to describe the hope that is within me. The essence of that comment, the contrast between what it means to consume some decaying plant matter versus having a lovely and colorful Mediterranean salad, the sweet nectar of life I tell you, could not be more obvious.
What is obvious is where the focus is, in the simple act of eating, one sees only death, while another eats to live. One set of eyes are on our higher selves, turned towards the Light, fully engaged in all the joys of culinary delight, while another can see only death on that plate.
What is the kingdom of heaven? It is where we place our eyes, it is what we chose to see and believe in. It is within us and outside of us, and all around us, and perhaps in another dimension entirely, but it is life. Life in all it’s richness and glory, life miraculous and hopeful, life full of treasures and surprises. It is the wonder children still have when they are discovering new things and simply delighting in them.
Faith is not just some pie in the sky imaginary thing, it is tangible, it has a substance and evidence to it. Go read Hebrews 11:1.
Jesus says, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. John 6:35
The kingdom of heaven is life more abundant, right here and right now, on earth. Jesus didn’t die just to get us into heaven, he died to get a little bit of heaven into us. To ask Him into your heart, to surrender all, is to avail yourself of His gift, His kingdom, His bread of life. Life more abundant.
Or we can remain outside of that kingdom and do it our way, but frankly if you’re just eating dead animals and decaying plant matter on a plate, I think it’s time to fire the chef.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Nice IB. Indeed heave is the ultimate objective but there can also be plenty of joy here.
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We call meat “dead animal” around the house sometimes as a joke (my hubby is a vegetarian) but we still thoroughly enjoy our meal of dead animal. 😄
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Ha! Yes, some people do call their dinner a “dead animal,” technically true perhaps, but lacking all the flavor, romance, and fellowship of a properly consumed meal. We’re the opposite at my house, hubby loves meat and potatoes, I lean towards the plant matter, but actually I’ll eat anything. 😉
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‘Fire the chef……………………..’
Dang good ms bytes. Been spending time at that bottomless well eh? And that water always satisfies, and the bread is always fresh.
You touched on an under appreciated aspect of the Christian life. ‘Eternal’ is not limited to duration, but perhaps more importantly, ‘quality,’ as you point out. Life ‘more abundant……………………..’ for the here and now.
By the way, just love how you took that branch, and opened up another bud. 😉 😉
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Thanks for your kind words, Colorstorm. Eternal is not limited to duration indeed, although if one is stuck consuming nothing more than dead animals off a plate, I imagine dinner feels as if it lasts an eternity. 😉
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😉 x5
(not to be confused with the 5 sighs of that lousy dinner)
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There’s room for all God’s creatures…right next to the mashed potatoes.
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Ha! I like that 😉
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Love how your thoughts turned to the Heavenly realm, how to share the joy and hope in your heart! We’re reminded that whatsoever is true, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever I things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things!
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Amen! Whatever things are pure, lovely, if there being any virtue or praise, think on these things. 🙂
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….and then there are people like me with iron overload disorder caused by hereditary hemochromatosis. I eat a predominantly vegetarian diet to keep my iron levels out of the toxic range. While everyone around me pigs out on meat.
Brisket is especially difficult for me to turn down. That, and pot roast. Sigh.
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Oh, I am so sorry! Being tormented by the brisket, that does not sound like fun. I make a stew entirely out of pot roast veggies that you would probably like. 😉
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Sounds yummy. 🙂
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Well-written and thoughtful. Your introduction reminded me of a bit of family humor. It was Christmas dinner at my parents’ house, and members of the family had a choice of appetizers: pickled herring or tomato juice. My dad I love pickled herring. I was given the job of asking each member of the family which they wanted. So I asked my children, one by one, would you prefer some of Grandma’s delicious homemade tomato juice, or would you rather have some dead fish. My children know me too well. Most of them chose the dead fish, J.
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Pickled herring and tomato juice! What are you doing, tormenting those poor kids? 😉
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Ha! So true IB. It was Christ who allowed us to partake of the idea of heaven and all that entails – Love, Peace, Fulfillment, Forgiveness, etc.. He brought all that to this world – in that He allowed us to be a part of it.
Years ago I was hauling frozen fish from Newfoundland to Boston. We hauled the same load for inventory trip after trip after trip. I called dispatch one day when I had loaded yet again and it was a new woman. She asked what I had aboard and I told her “42,000 pounds of dead fish”. There was no laugh or comment so I just figured she didn’t have the same sense of humor. The next night when I arrived at the terminal to pickup my paperwork on the way to delivery, the official bills of lading said “Dead Fish” Ha! Anyway, I delivered on those bills and had a good laugh with the warehouse guys. About 3 weeks later the boss called me into his office when I was passing through. He had a copy of the bills that had come back from the customer. Apparently they did not think it was funny and told him that if we did it again they would refuse to pay. 😀
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Ha! Good story, Paul. Women who do paperwork and appear to have no sense of humor can be downright dangerous.
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Hey IB, the nihilism in the question you snatched from the peanut gallery cannot be overlooked.
As far as it goes, I am growing increasing tired of atheists being bothered by the fact that many of us Christians eat meat as if that makes us horrible people.
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“I am growing increasing tired of atheists being bothered by the fact that many of us Christians eat meat as if that makes us horrible people.”
A few decades ago there was book that described that precise thing, a coming future scenario where people fell away from faith, began to identify more with animals than human suffering, and eventually started harvesting the organs of our own kind for profit, all in the name of progressive morality. For the life if me I cannot remember the name of that book, but it is rather chilling for me to realize that we are here now, we have arrived at that dystopian place and it is fiction no more.
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I am not familiar with the book but, given what is going on at Planned Parenthood, it seems eerily prophetic.
For the most part, I think vegetarianism is lazy activism on the part of people who want to make themselves seem better than everyone else.
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“Soylent Green”?
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Could be
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How do you know if someone is an atheist? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
How do you know if someone is a vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
Or you could just spot it from the acne on their face due to the lack of vitamin B12 and Omega 3 fats
Anyway, point is, it’s all just activism to be ‘cool’ and ‘trendy.’ Nothing about it is really based on objective morality. Hence why a vegan would have no problem aborting a human baby, but God forbid she eats an omelette.
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“Call me crazy, many people do already” – Oh, PLEASE say that isn’t so!
“I rather shamelessly snatched a comment from the peanut gallery, busy attempting to argue against God that asked with complete nihilism, ‘what did you eat today, a dead plant or a dead animal?’” – Not only did you snatch my comment ‘rather shamelessly,’ you snatched it entirely out of context and never bothered to bring along an explanation. I was explaining to Colorstorm, in small, one-syllable words I was hoping he could understand, that all life on earth depends on the death of other creatures for its sustenance, from plants who use the decayed remains of animals and other plants, to the animal kingdom, where some kill plants to live, while others kill the plant-eaters to survive. If you wish to romanticize that fact by calling it a buffet, that, of course, is your option. I like to escape reality from time to time myself, but see no reason to dwell in a fairy-land of fantasy, the world, as it is, will never be improved unless we take the time to actually live in it and see it as it is, rather than as we would like it to be.
“I eat lovely things, like diced peppers and sautéed chicken or barbecued spare ribs and scalloped potatoes. Today I had a piece of banana bread still warm from the oven with bits of walnuts and a crumb topping.” – Were those menu items living or dead?
“…the contrast between what it means to consume some decaying plant matter versus having a lovely and colorful Mediterranean salad….” takes place entirely within the world of your imagination.
“What is obvious is where the focus is, in the simple act of eating, one sees only death, while another eats to live.” – While we might ‘eat to live,’ we also kill to eat – hiding your head in the sand won’t prevent that from being a fact, the only difference between us being that you choose to gild the lily, and I think the lily is fine, just as it is. Your thinking reminds me of the fantasy world the French aristocracy built for itself during the reign of Louis XVI, against the reality of the masses starving in the streets of Paris. When told of their starvation, I can almost see you quipping, “Then let them eat cake —”
“Faith is not just some pie in the sky imaginary thing, it is tangible, it has a substance and evidence to it. Go read Hebrews 11:1.” – I’m surprised you would cite ‘Hebrews’ as being evidence for ANYthing. No one knows who wrote it, it was written in far better Greek than Paul ever evidenced himself capable of writing, so we KNOW he was not the author. Early on, Eusebius indicated that he doubted its authorship, and it wasn’t even placed in canonicity until the 4th century AD. You wouldn’t buy a used car from someone like that, but if it’s in the Bible, you tend to accept every word of it as true – what does that say about you?
I would have missed this entirely, had not Colorstorm sent me over here – I suppose I should thank him. Naaahhh —
Oh, and before I go, I/B – you have a tendency to leave my comments in moderation and not allow them to be read, which is fine, because they are written for the most part for you anyway, so ‘mission accomplished’ here – but the beauty lies in the fact that you can’t publicly counter anything I’ve said, that must be frustrating.
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Oh look, the peanut gallery has arrived!
“Your thinking reminds me of the fantasy world the French aristocracy built for itself during the reign of Louis XVI, against the reality of the masses starving in the streets of Paris.”
You fancy me to be Marie Antoinette and yet I’m the one who is delusional??
“…you have a tendency to leave my comments in moderation and not allow them to be read..”
Alas, I have to work for living sometimes, so the filters are usually turned on when I am away. You will simply have to be patient and also, kindly say something that is worth the effort I must put into fishing it out of spam.
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‘People have to work.’ Copy that.
I need to create an icon for ‘love your last line………………’ \o/
(it’s borrowed but it makes the point)
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“You will simply have to be patient and also, kindly say something that is worth the effort I must put into fishing it out of spam.” – Not surprisingly, that sounds a lot like something Mlle. Marie Antoinette might say —
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Totally ironic and somewhat off topic, but Marie Antoinette has become a bit of meme through the years, based on numerous false impressions. It is unlikely she ever said anything at all about “let them eat cake,” and yet we’ve built an entire persona around that very phrase, one rooted in falsehood and imagination, more than any genuine understanding of the person.
That is what people often do with God too, they take a bit of false info, claim that is all they need to know, and reject Him out of hand.
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OR, they look at the sky, see lightening, hear thunder, and decide there must be someone up there causing that. Talk about making assumptions based on very limited knowledge!
That worked fine as long as Humankind was earthbound – god was up there, somewhere among the clouds. Then we learned to fly, and so god was moved where we would never be able to prove he wasn’t – SPACE. Then we went to the moon.
So now, that once-obscure Midianite storm god, YHWH, resides beyond space and time, where no one can ever go, because such a location doesn’t exist – but then that seems a fitting residence for an imaginary god.
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FYI, arch. Marie Antoinette was married so the title of mademoiselle would not be appropriate. Your line should have read, “…that sounds a lot like something Mme Marie Antoinette might say.” (My emphasis).
Becky
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Actually that’s not entirely correct. While she was queen consort she would have been known by her regnal title. For the period after she was ousted by the Revolutionaries until her death, she would have been known as Mme Capet.
Sorry. I’m a French history buff. 😀
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According to what I read, Becky, Mary was married too, but that didn’t seem to interfere with her virginity – so if Mary had been French, would it have been ‘Mme’ or ‘Mlle’ Mary –?
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Of course she was married, arch. She would have been Mrs. or Mme or whatever the Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent might be. Mary was only a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. Afterward, she gave birth to a number of other children, and they were conceived in the normal human way. LOL
But I stand corrected, too. Anitvan is the knowledgeable historian among us, it appears.
Becky
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Hi, Arch. I thought your display name was familiar but it’s not clickable. Do you have a blog of your own?
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I did have, Odii, for over four years – “in His own image” —
— then the company that provided it decided to discontinue that particular format, but offered to transfer all my files to a WordPress format, but before you even say it, I hate WordPress and would never open a WP blog. In my opinion, it’s not user-friendly. I’m looking for another company whose format meets my needs, as I backed up all of my files – when I find it, I’ll begin again.
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Ok, Archie. I wish it was online though so I could see what your thoughts are as fully as possible. Unfortunately, emails don’t work for me right now or I would have craved your indulgence with those. Perhaps another time.
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“I wish it was online though so I could see what your thoughts are as fully as possible.” – On what in particular?
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I’m usually not shy about expressing my thoughts, as I’m sure Tricia would be all too happy to confirm.
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Basically God and existence. While I have found atheistic arguments generic (like any other philosophy really), each atheist has a specific flavor, a unique objection, and I wonder what yours is.
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Just waiting on evidence, Odii – haven’t seen any.
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With so many women who have such a hate relationship with food, this post is SO SO refreshing. Thank you!
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For some reason, IB, this post reminded me of Christopher Hitchens who said shortly before he died, that if he learned there really was a sovereign and supreme being, he’d be so disappointed. It had something to do with his belief that God is a tyrant. All Mr. Hitchens could see about God was His authoritative rule that meant humankind can’t be in charge. He could see nothing else when confronted by the idea of God, whereas Christians who debated him, and I and many others who listened, understood God’s love as well as His justice, His mercy as well as His sovereignty, His grace as well as His truth, His forbearance as well as His rule, His servanthood as well as His lordship.
Sadly, Mr. Hitchens chose to see only one aspect of who God is, and he despised Him for it. His solution was simply to renounce God’s existence, as if that actually made God cease to be. Our rejection of God, and our love for Him, don’t change Him one iota. He is self-existent and therefore untouched by our poor rebellions. We neither diminish Him by spitting in His face nor add to Him by giving Him praise.
And yet, the beauty and the mystery is that God wants our praise, that He delights in our obedience, that He desires our friendship. What an amazing God!
Becky
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Beautiful and well said, Becky. God is amazing, indeed.
I call that particular argument the Al Capone defense, because once a couple of non believers were describing God and occurred to me, that’s not God at all, that’s Al Capone!
The entire idea that we should reject God because He’s running a crime syndicate down here or something is a bit amusing in it’s complete lack of logic. God is nothing of the sort, but imagine if He were, in that case He’s still quite real and you better get on His good side even quicker!
All kidding aside, it is about authority and surrendering to the fact that we are not the one’s in charge here. That is scary, that does require some trust, and I empathize. They don’t call it a leap of faith for nothing. The thing is, God is sovereign, God is real, whether we believe or approve or not.
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I want to remember that–the Al Capone defense!! Hahah. Love it.
And amen and amen!
Becky
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Another lovely post IB as was ColorStorm’s that you referenced. The comments too have been very worth reading through but your first response to Arch was priceless. Still chuckling over ,”Oh look, the peanut gallery has arrived!”
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I’ve been laughing since I began reading the comments. So much fun. Especially ColorStorm’s “tomato juice or dead fish”! Smart kids! Paul’s “dead fish” bills. I always find women doing paperwork with this bored don’t-even-think-about-it look on their face a little dangerous. Even a joke to break the ice could piss them off to no end. And such humorless customers too, lol. And then there’s the theist/atheist debate. This was fun, IB. 🙂
About the post, you’re on point. It’s really a change of lens. When we believe, the world doesn’t change, the dish doesn’t change, we do. And because we do everything else that we touch does too.
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Oh sorry, that was Salvageable, not ColorStorm @’Especially ColorStorm’s “tomato juice or dead fish”! Smart kids!’
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I have to agree with you. Now that I have that bread of life, my whole life has taken a sharp turn into a new and wonderful direction.
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Amen! May He continue to bless you.
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