Why do you eat?

Lately i've been eating really well. I went to Boston on a business trip and basically...business trips are 50% work and 50% food tour for me. I love being able to go to a different city or a country and try all the delicacies that city has to offer. For example, when I was in China I probably tried every type of soup dumpling and fried rice dish East Coast China had to offer, Shanghai dumpling, Yangzhou dumpling, Wuxi dumpling, Cixi dumpling and the list goes on. For some reason...in China every city is "famous" for their style of dumpling or fried rice or pork or beef or something. So...how can I NOT try?? I mean...its famous for God Sakes.

But whenever I gorge on these expensive and delicious meals of mine something that my friend Benjamin, a seminarian from Tanzania who passed away last year, asked me during one of my meals rings in the back of my head. He asked, "David, do you eat to live? Or live to eat?". At the moment when he asked me (i didnt know him too well then) I thought to myself, "Wtf is this guy talking about?" But the more I thought about it the more i realized how deep the simple question was.

In Africa at the seminary all the seminarians eat there for 3 years of schooling is this corn mash called Oogali. It's not even sweet corn it literally looks like mash potatoes just doesn't have any taste. It comes with baked beans and spinich or cabbage on the side. You eat it with your hands and massage it into a ball dip it in the baked bean sauce and eat it. We ate like this for about 6 weeks most of the time and it was horrible. The thought of eating like that for 3 years...its unfathomable. But the question asks such a deeper question. "Do you eat to LIVE or live to EAT?" essential is asking us the question, "Why do you live?". Do we live to become a doctor or a lawyer or a famous designer? Or do we do those things simply to be a tent maker (Paul made tents during his ministry to support himself financially), and live to serve God?

I feel like many times I forget about God. I think about the next great meal I'm going to have. I think about the next snowboard gear I want to buy. I think about the next new experience I'm going to try but do we live to do those things? I want to do be someone who eats to live. I want to be someone that is a tent maker so that I can LIVE to be a kingdom worker. I don't want to HAVE TO have my job in order to survive. I don't want to HAVE TO make money to eat great meals or buy nice things. I want to live as if I have nothing except the Lord because all things I have comes from the Lord. He gives and He takes away, Naked i came from my mothers womb and naked I will go. God, be all of me. I don't want to live foolishly living in order to eat, rather just eat to live for you.