There’s lots to be said about meal planning and preparation. I find that if I don’t do some basic planning and prep, I spend too much money, eat poorly, skip meals, get hangry and have blood sugar and energy problems. There’s much truth to be ingested with the adage, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” So I’m starting a three-part blog series revolving around “Meal Prep” in which we will look at various biblical situations surrounding meals and explore helpful applications. Let’s go on a fun adventure over the next few weeks and discover meal prep à la the Bible!
As we begin this blog series, let’s look at a really important meal in the Old Testament—one that set up big impacts with helpful lessons that we can apply. In Genesis 18, we read about Abraham sitting at his tent door in the heat of the day when three visitors (angels) show up. In Abraham’s culture, it was extremely important to provide hospitality to guests, offering them rest from their journey, a tasty meal and some polite conversation. To this end, Abraham rustled up some fresh bread, slaughtered a choice calf and organized a tasty feast for these strangers.
When I think about throwing a meal together, it doesn’t cross my mind to go out and butcher a calf, knead dough to make bread or harvest veggies to make a balance meal. If someone were to unexpectedly show up at my doorstep, my quick meal would probably include microwave popcorn, crackers, lunchmeat and maybe some apple wedges (if the apples aren’t too wrinkly). So it’s obvious by the contrast that Abraham’s meal preparations were extensive and took a fair amount of time.
And here’s the really amazing outcome of the meal prep: a conversation that built faith, informed the immediate future and provided encouragement for both Abraham and Sarah about God doing impossible things for them. I’m pointing out these items because over the course of their meal and the conversation with Abraham, they talked about Sarah becoming pregnant the next year, even though she was well past childbearing years. When she expressed doubt over this impossibility, they replied in Genesis 18:14a, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”
At the end of the meal, these visitors talked with Abraham about the future of Sodom and Gomorrah with the plans to inspect and potentially destroy the cities for their sin and violence. It was in this exchange that Abraham interceded for the life of his nephew, Lot. Abraham had an extended discussion, asking for his nephew’s life in the increments of ten righteous people in successive requests, starting with fifty righteous people. The end of Abraham’s petitions is that the angels wouldn’t destroy the city if they found only ten righteous people.
So from Abraham’s meal prep efforts, he had an incredible conversation that was faith building and informative. As this relates to us, let’s be mindful to keep our fellowship with God very consistent and robust. If we think about our fellowship with God in terms of having a feast for our soul, then we would be wise to maintain steady meal prep and transparent conversation.
