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“I never saw anyone pray over a cookie before.”

 

Sunday, November 6th, 2022

by Ken Pullen

A CROOKED PATH

 

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!

Psalm 150:6

“I never saw anyone pray over a cookie before,” were the words I heard Jim say, after I gave thanks to the Lord my God. For that cookie. Those were the exact words from a professed Christian man, in a professed Christian setting. This occurred before the SARS-CoV-2 virus was world infamous. I heard these words as I sat around the round table during the group meal prior to attending one of the pastors speaking before the assembled men’s weekly Bible study. When food used to be served and all the men present, around ninety to one hundred, would have a meal.

I witnessed nary a one praying prior to reaching in to begin ingesting the food piled on their plates.

giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Ephesians 5:20

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17

At this particular time, I had a cup of terrible black coffee and a mediocre at best chocolate chip cookie on my paper plate, and I bowed my head, closed my eyes, folded my hands, and gave thanks to God. For I did nothing to make this food and drink possible. Nor did anyone else anywhere else save by the blessings and will of God to provide.

I give thanks to God every time I eat anything at any time anywhere.

What ignited this piece to be assembled tonight?

I awoke around an hour ago, around three a.m., with the change to Standard Time, due to pain that is my constant companion and awakens me frequently, nightly, and I needed to refill my glass of water as I also had a twinge of appetite. So, I went downstairs and filled my glass with refreshing pure water, and made myself a ketchup sandwich. Yes, a classically trained chef that has made more foods than most people even know to exist, some of the finest assembled ingredients on a plate likes to make and eat a ketchup sandwich from time to time. I sliced two thin slices from the Boule de Pan, one of the many types of French bread, squirted some Heinz organic ketchup on one of the slices, placed the other slice on top, and had my ketchup sandwich. Something I’ve eaten at times since a small lad. Not always on such fine bread.

I took hold of my glass of water, gently set my sandwich on a paper towel and wrapped the paper around my sandwich, and made my way painfully back upstairs. Where I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and gave thanks to God for all that He provides.

Then, after having finished my delicious sandwich I thought about Jim saying to me about three years ago, “I never saw anyone pray over a cookie.” And I turned on my monitor and keyboard and this is the result.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

James 1:17

My lovely wife the Lord has blessed me with and I do not go out to eat often. At least I don’t think so compared to many folks. When we do though wherever we go to eat when our food arrives we give thanks to God for the bountiful blessings of daily bread, and sustenance to keep our physical beings alive and going.

I am an observer. I watch other people. I always have. It’s how God knitted me, put me together. One of those included parts. While I continually read and hear that on average more than sixty percent of the American population is “Christian” [most surveys say about sixty-six per cent claim to be so] as I look about whenever dining out I never see, oh, so ever rarely see anyone praying and giving thanks to God for what He made possible for them to eat. A full solar eclipse while a great meteor shower and the Northern Lights shining simultaneously happens more often than witnessing anyone giving thanks to God for the food set before them! God making that food possible, God blessing with the life, the heart beating, the respiration occurring, the ability to pay, God providing the money — every dollar, pound, Euro, yen or ruble — God making every bit, every morsel of food possible all around the world on every plate, in every hand to mouth.

Only God makes all things possible. Including every morsel, every bite of food ever finding its way into a mouth that is chewed and swallowed.

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Yet none acknowledge and give the Lord thanks. He Who makes all things possible. He Who by His will holds all things together and by His words, “Let there be…” made all things known.

Yet the always busy, always mindless, always blathering, talking, yakking, chatting it up people in a choir of noise don’t have the thought, the time, the mind, the words to offer up to the God Who makes it possible for them to see, to hear, to have their limbs and to be able to pick up a knife, a fork, a spoon and to savor and imbibe of all things put into their wicked selfish mouths where there is no place for words of thanks to God for providing everything — EVERY THING EVERY ONE — has. From each breath, each heartbeat, to each morsel or bountiful plate of food.

All thanks unto God Almighty!

In all things.

All things.

Always.

Who do we think we are as we go about not acknowledging God, not giving Him thanks in all things?

From the overflowing feasts on tables to the humble slice of bread and water.

I read and hear all the noise, all the words about revival, being a Christian nation, about all the Christians around and I hear and read their words of wailing, anger, frustration, wondering how and why, imagining they are the solution, and politics are the answer, an election is the solution yet I don’t witness many, if any, at any time humbling themselves and acknowledging that all things are given by God, by His will, by His grace and mercy.

Even a cookie. Even a ketchup sandwich. Even the breath I take in and expel, the heart within my chest pumping the life-giving blood yet we can’t give thanks continually, always, in all things, in all places at all times for the Saviour that shed His blood so we might claim to have life in Him?

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Luke 22:19

Really?

Where is our mind, our heart, our spirit, our soul really? Our priority?

By our fruits, we are known.

Are we lights unto the world, beaming and shining like a lit up city on a hill?

Or are we dim, darkened, and no light seen in us?

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

1 Peter 2:9

Yes, I pray over a single cookie. A ketchup sandwich. Alone deep into the night or within a filled room of folks eating. No matter. Not to make a show or in thinking I’m anything special. Far, far from that. The exact opposite. For it is God Who has provided. Not me. Not you. Not in anything. We don’t have a single dollar, a single bit of food, the next breath, or bit of blood entering the right atrium while simultaneously the left atrium receives oxygenated blood from the lungs except by the grace, the will of God Almighty.

Do you when sitting around any table about to eat, at work, at home, or in a restaurant, no matter where give thanks to the Lord for what He and only He provides? Look around. Are people giving thanks unto the Lord for providing what they are so blessed to eat? Or are they obnoxious in truth, arrogant in truth, unthankful, self–absorbed, impatient, and oblivious?

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

See that cookie? That sandwich? None of it from the seed to the soil, to the water needed, the oxygen needed, the farmer, the hands to prepare, to the plate to the warm mouth due to blood and oxygen flowing within an individual about to bite and chew are possible without God Almighty.

Do we think enough? Pray enough? Give thanks enough?

Are you ashamed of the gospel? Don’t want to appear different than the world?

Woe to you…woe to you.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Romans 1:16-17

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

1 John 2:15-17

All Scripture is from the English Standard Version

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