Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Bitter and Sweet (05/28/09)
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TITLE: SAVOURY FOOD THAT I LOVE | Previous Challenge Entry
By kennedy wanyoike
06/04/09 -
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The Bible has used natural and common things to demonstrate far reaching spiritual truths. You may have noted hoe food and words work closely together to affect man’s destiny. Food is ingested in the mouth with the aid if the tongue, the same tongue helps us speak words that we can hear.
In Job 12:11 the bible says “does not the ear test words and the mouth taste food?” For more clarity the same verse in the amplified version “is it not the task of the ear to discriminate between (wise and unwise) words, just as the mouth distinguishes (between desirable and undesirerable) food?
Generally, both food and words fall into two major categories of bitter or sweet. Bitter and sweet are sharp tastes that appeal to our taste buds and sense of smell. All five senses are connected to our memory. Perhaps you clearly remember some bitter or sweet words spoken to you several years ago. You may also remember a bitter or sweet meal you ate some years ago, which is the reason we keep going back to the same restaurant again and again.
There are people who carry about unforgiveness and offences because of bitter words spoken to them. This fact was played very well in the life of Esau, Isaac’s first born son and twin to Jacob. When Isaac was about to die he asked Esau to hunt some game and make him his favourite savoury meal so that he may bless Esau. Isaac was ausing food as a platform to release a material and spiritual blessing, through words.
However, things didn’t work out as planned, because Esau’s mother overheard the conversation and quickly cooked a similar meal of savoury lamb, which she gave to Jacob to take to his father. Isaac ate and unknowingly blessed Jacob.
In Genesis 27:34 the Bible says “…when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me – me also, O my father’ “.Esau was bitter because he now realized the consequences of his earlier actions. Although it looked very unfair to Esau, it was his own doing. Proverbs 27:7 says “A satisfied soul loathes the honey comb but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” The second part worked against Esau.
One day Esau came home from hunting and was very hungry. He found Jacob making some stew and asked for some, but his brother asked for the firstborn’s birthright in exchange. Shrewd Jacob made Esau take an oath to commit him that he had sold his birthright. What seemed sweet then afterward turned to be a bitter cry.
The far reaching consequence of this misstep is that we no longer hear of Esau’s descendants, called the Edomites. They ceased to exist in early bible days, but the descendants of Jacob live to this day, they are the Israelites.
Our appetite for food or words is shaped by the two words, bitter or sweet. This calls for careful consideration. Proverbs 23:1-3 says “when you sit down to eat with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite, don’t desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food” This is a caution to our appetite in eating and talking because both affect us naturally and spiritually.
This principle is demonstrated by God in Genesis 8:20-21 “Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar ……when the Lord smelt the sweet aroma, He said, “I will not again curse the ground for man’s sake.”
You see, when God smelt the sweet aroma, He said words that affect the earth even now. I believe I ‘am seeing an open window here, of using the principle that worked in Isaac’s family. If we personally and sincerely scrutinize the food we love most and the words we consistently speak, we get a glimpse of where we are headed.
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