S3. E11. Seeing Meal Times as a Time of Consecration
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It is not God's rhythm for us to be skipping meals, to be skipping nourishment. When we do that, we are leaning into self-reliance and self-sufficiency,
Welcome to Your Daily Bread podcast. I'm your host, Abbie Stasior, a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor. My prayer is that these bite-sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food, improve body image, and ultimately help you grow closer to God. Now, I can't personally heal you, but I'm gonna be directing you to the one that can, and that is Jesus. Also disclaimer, I'm not a pastor, but a sister in Christ that's offering you some food for thought that you can take into your quiet time with the Lord as your daily bread. Let's dig in.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to your Daily Bread podcast. This week we are gonna be talking about, when you feel too busy to eat lunch and how to see your mealtimes as a time of consecration and what even that word means. We're gonna get into the Old Testament, [00:01:00] little Leviticus. I am really excited.
Father God, thank you for this day. Lord, we praise you and thank you that your mercies are new every single day. Lord, we praise you that your grace is sufficient.
Lord, where would we be without your grace? Thank you Lord for never leaving us nor forsaking us. Lord, thank you for always standing at the door knocking, waiting for us to open and you're there with open arms. And a patient heart and so much compassion for what we are going through. Lord, I pray that everyone that listens to this episode has ears to hear and they sense your invitation to slow down.
And to trust. And I pray that this transforms people's mealtimes, Lord. And I pray that everything that's said in this episode is not what I want to say, but is what you want to say through me. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
So we're gonna be reading in Leviticus chapter 20 verse seven. And that says, [00:02:00] consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am the Lord your God.
Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord who makes you holy. And y'all, that is the word of the Lord. so what is consecration? It's one of those christianese type terms that a lot of people say, a lot of pastors say, but they don't always explain what it means. Consecration means to be set apart. Whatever you set apart, whatever you set aside for the Lord, he makes it holy. And Christine Kane said this on her Instagram recently. She said, what you set apart invites his presence. And that's like light bulbs were going off. I'm like, yes. That's exactly what I've been telling clients when I ask them to make their mealtimes a time of consecration set apart.
To spend time with the Lord because what you set aside and consecrate to him invites his presence. Now, the biggest objection that I get when it [00:03:00] comes to why people skip lunch is that people are so busy, they have so much to do. They feel like they can't take the 5, 10, 15, ideally 20 minutes. Based on our hunger and fullness cues, it takes about 20 minutes for your body to send you fullness cues.
So ideally, I would love for you to eat for 20 minutes, but hey, if you're really busy and you gotta shovel it down, something is better than nothing. But people feel that they're too busy to take those few minutes aside because of how much pressures on them, the deadlines that they have, the length of their to-do list out there looking like a CVS receipt,
It truly is an act of trust to take that time. Away from your work to spend time with the Lord and to refuel, and we feel too busy to eat lunch. We're actually too busy not to do that because what you set aside for the Lord, he blesses the rest.
So not only are you going to be refueled, recharged, restored from physically fueling yourself with [00:04:00] lunch and nourishment, midday, but you're going to have a supernatural backing to the work that you do. After that time of consecration, after your lunch break, and you have too much to do, to not have the spirit of the living God helping you with what you're doing.
We know that apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. We can do no thing. The concept of meals being a time of consecration, something set aside for the Lord is very similar to the biblical principle of the tithe, where you take the first 10% of your income, the first and best fruits, and the rest of your income, the 90% is supernaturally blessed.
God can do so much more with 90% of your income than you could do with a hundred percent of your income in your own hands, driving in your own strength. So it's the same with your time. I know that you're sacrificing a little bit of time to refuel and recharge and abide in the Lord, , but you are actually going to experience more blessings, greater [00:05:00] productivity, greater efficiency afterwards, and just have this divine supernatural backing.
God's gonna be able to do more with your to-do list and your time when you consecrate that time to him. God multiplies what you surrender. It truly is an act of trust.
It is an example of surrendering to spend time with the Lord at meal times. And it is interesting, like this is how he designed the human body to need fuel multiple times throughout the day. For about 20 minutes. That's how God designed our fearfully and wonderfully made body.
That's his design. And so he wants us to be abiding in him throughout the day. He doesn't just want us to eat one meal a day and then we're good for the rest of the day. He wants us to keep returning to him and have checkpoints throughout the day where we can reconnect with the Vine and be dependent on him, and he can deposit wisdom and I think about how Jesus.
Sat with the disciples at so many meals and he lingered at [00:06:00] tables and meals were not an inconvenience to his ministry. They were part of it. And that's where a lot of the times he did his best work and he gave so many amazing revelations and taught. How many revelations are we missing from God because we're not sitting at the table with him.
Psalm 23 says that he's prepared a table for you and are you just standing Jesus up at the reservation? There's so many benefits to taking that time to eat. Midday and reconnect with God because it's not just a time for you to physically refuel with food, but it actually restores and refreshes your soul.
And that's another thing that Psalm 23 says, he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters and he restores my soul. Other translations say that he refreshes my soul. And that's really what your lunch break is. And when you take time to do that, it actually prevents overeating later in the day.
It actually can help you [00:07:00] break free from emotional eating. It restores your energy, productivity, efficiency, and it reconnects you to the vine. It's another way where you are embodying Romans 12 1 2, where you're offering your body as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God.
And that verse actually says, that is your true and proper worship. Taking a lunch break is more than just a recommendation from your dietician so that you can get some more protein and fiber and carbs in midday, which is great. I need you to do that. But it is so much more than that because from a spiritual standpoint, it's an opportunity to connect with God, to have a spiritual backing for the rest of your day and to set time out in your day to invite God's presence in.
Seeing your meals as a time of consecration is not an inconvenience, it's an invitation to abide and those who are self-reliant. Those are the ones who typically skip meals, but those who surrender that time, it doesn't have to be a long time. Even if you have an [00:08:00] hour lunch break, I'm not saying that you have to eat for an hour, but just a couple minutes.
Those who surrender that time, they are seeing that time as consecration and they're experiencing more of the Lord's presence, and that's my desire for you.
So if you need help. With finding time and healing your relationship with food and optimizing your mealtime to invite the Lord in, and this faith-based approach to healing your relationship with food is interesting for you, that I encourage you to head to the show notes and book a free 20 minute call with me.
I would love to serve you. See y'all next week.
. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Your Daily Bread Podcast. Now, if anything about this episode resonated with you, I wanna encourage you to send it to three sisters in Christ who may also wanna steward their bodies better.
I read every comment, every review of the show, and I love hearing your testimonies and how the Holy Spirit is meeting you through these episodes. And if you haven't left a review yet, I wanna encourage you to do so 'cause it truly does help the show grow and it. Ultimately benefits the kingdom. And if you need any personalized support with your [00:09:00] nutrition and your relationship with food or your body image, head to the show notes and you'll see all the different ways to work with me.
See you next week.
