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Americans consume a lot of food.
That’s true for each us even if we’ve never given a second thought to going up against Joey Chestnut in his next competitive eating tournament.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the average American will put away 1,996 pounds of food this year. If you’ve ever sighed, “I feel like I ate a ton,” that’s almost literally true on an annualized basis.
Dairy products tip the scales the most, at 640 pounds, followed by vegetables (244 pounds), meats (222), grains (199), and fruit (115).
To achieve those averages, all of us are apparently compensating for NFL broadcaster Al Michaels, who recently revealed that since his teenage mom never forced him to eat anything green, he hasn’t knowingly eaten a single vegetable his entire life.
The USDA notes that two different patterns have emerged in recent years. Americans are consuming more processed foods, sugar, and fats compared to previous generations – something on public display every summer at county and state fairs. But there’s also an increase in the consumption of organic and health-conscious foods. “Good foods” and “bad foods” are simultaneously competing for our attention.
Sadly,. the USDA also estimates that 30-40% of the food produced in our country ends up in landfills, scraped off our plates as leftovers or thrown away because of expiration dates.
If you do in fact put away 1,996 pounds of food this and every year, and enjoy an average lifespan, you will have consumed something like 75 tons of food before you leave this world.
How is such a thing even possible?
That’s easy: one bite at a time.
Mary Sue and I were blessed with four children. I once calculated that over the course of their childhoods, we (OK, mostly Mary Sue) changed around 22,000 diapers. How in the world is it possible to scale a mountain of 22,000 diapers?
You take it one smelly diaper at a time.
As you think about your future, how are you ever going to handle all of the curveballs that life is going to throw at you? How will you endure the sum total of your economic setbacks? Or deal with all of those messages that begin, “The doctor wants to talk to you right away about your test results”?
For that matter, how will you ever kick the habits that keep afflicting you, or make progress in your prayer life, or begin to comprehend the vast depth and scope of God’s Word?
There’s only one way: one day at a time.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us to ask our Father for our daily bread. We don’t ask for tomorrow’s bread, but for our epiousion bread – a Greek word that appears to mean “just what we need for today” (Matthew 6:11).
Later, in the same Sermon on the Mount, he says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?… Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (6:25, 34).
Dieticians agree that it would be exceedingly unhealthy to do all of next week’s eating this week – as if we could get a jump on things and somehow come out ahead. Nor can we store up forgiveness or patience or joy or humility as if they were pantry items, socked away for use at a moment’s notice.
Like the manna that fell every morning in the wilderness to feed God’s people during the Exodus, God’s special gifts are good for just one day.
They arrive when we need them, and not a moment before.
When will we receive the grace we need for the next 24 hours? Only during the course of the next 24 hours.
How do we learn to trust God like that?
One day at a time.