What’s your child’s favorite meal? Hot dogs? Pizza?

Whatever it is, I’m guessing it’s probably not a healthy option. Come to think of it, even the food we think of as healthy probably isn’t. The more I read about GMOs (genetically modified organisms), the more I’m suspicious of even the fresh vegetables on my plate.These days, more and more people are concerned with the food we – and our children and grandchildren – are eating. Artificial sweeteners that may cause cancer, genetically modified foods that are not labelled as such, the battle between sugar and high fructose corn syrup, mercury-laden fish – these are only a few of the issues we face as we strive to provide satisfying food for ourselves and our families.

While we need to be wise in the foods we choose, this Easter season is a good time to think about a different kind of food.

In his gospel, John records a time when Jesus traveled to Samaria with His disciples. While there, He was alone for a time because His disciples had gone to purchase food. When they returned, they found Jesus speaking with a Samaritan woman. This was doubly scandalous – first, because she was a woman and respectable Jewish men did not speak to strange women – especially men who were honored teachers or religious leaders. Second, not only was she a woman, she was a hated Samaritan – a mixed race most pious Jews took great pains to avoid.

And then the conversation turns to food in John 4:31-34 (NIV)… 

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

Jesus’ food was not limited to those items digested in His stomach. His food was also associated with fulfilling God’s will for Him. This passage reminds me of Jesus’ time of temptation, when He said, ““It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

I wonder…what would happen if you and I spent as much time ingesting this type of food? What if we were as concerned with identifying our heavenly Father’s will for us as we are identifying the menu for our next meal?

What if we spent as much time training our children to be sensitive to God’s leading in their lives as we are in teaching them the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables and less sweets?

Jesus knew and fulfilled His Father’s will, despite great personal cost. It was His food. May the same be said of each one of us.