I'm Thankful for Food

Each day until Thanksgiving, Everyday Truth is looking at a different reason to be thankful in a family devotional. Use these devotionals with your kids to help keep your family focused on giving thanks. If you missed the introductory post, check it out here for directions on creating a "Thanksgiving wall." When you're done with the devotional head on over to the Everyday Truth Facebook page and join in the discussion of why we're thankful for food.

One of my favorite foods is pizza. I love that you can get it in all sorts of varieties -- pepperoni, green peppers, tomatoes, anchovies, even fish can all top your pizza. You could eat pizza every day for months and never have the same combination twice.

I also like dessert. Yum. Chocolate is my favorite. I can have chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, chocolate fudge, hot chocolate, chocolate mousse and more. Just eating chocolate for dessert, we could probably eat for weeks and never have the same thing twice.

Food comes in an amazing variety of flavors, textures and colors. We can eat salty potato chips, a sweet orange or a bitter lemon. We can try yellow bananas, purple eggplant or red meat. Our tongues are made to enjoy all those flavors, and our eyes are made to delight in all the colors.

God could have given us just one type of food. We could eat the same thing every day. It would fill us up and keep our bodies healthy. But it would be boring. Instead, God chose to give us tongues filled with taste buds that let us enjoy the many flavors of food He created. He gave us healthy foods to fuel our bodies, and He made sweets to give us a treat every now and then.

If you have food on your table three times a day, be thankful. Many people in the world only have enough food for one meal a day -- or less. They don't worry about what type of food they will get. They are simply grateful for any food. It's easy to think those people who don't get three meals a day are far away in places like Africa or India, but there are kids in the United States who don't get enough to eat every day -- and they might even go to your school.

If you're thankful for the huge variety of food from which you can choose, if you have plenty of food in your house, thank God for it. Then take a minute to help someone who might not have enough food. You won't just be helping someone, you'll be making God happy. Proverbs 19:7 tells us "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done." When we take care of someone who has less than us, God promises to reward us. How cool is that?

The next time you go to the grocery store, take some of your allowance and buy a couple of cans of food to take to your local food pantry. This food helps people who don't have enough to eat. You can make a difference in another kid's life just by buying some cans of food. Then another child can be thankful for food, too.

On your Thanksgiving wall today, write down the foods for which you're thankful. When you sit down to eat today, be sure to thank God for providing the food you're about to eat and pray for the kids who don't have enough to eat today.