02/03/07 – If you read the title of this post and thought that I would be writing about unmerited favor, let me begin by stating that I’m actually going to be talking about another use of the term, specifically a short prayer before a meal. Moreover the thoughts that I will share did not come to me while I was preparing to consume a meal of food. Rather, these thoughts came to me as I was preparing to enjoy a meal of words.
Early yesterday morning, much as I do every morning, I sat down to read and pray before I launched into the rest of the day. Before I started reading, I quickly offered up a prayer to God thanking Him for the time that I had to read and asking Him to bless my time by growing my knowledge of Him through what I read.
As I didn’t have a lot of time, I chose to continue in C.S. Lewis’ Miracles, a book I received for Christmas and one that I enjoy picking up when I have a spare moment. In the book, Lewis presents his case for why it is reasonable for a Christian to believe that there is a God who interacts with His creation via uniquely personal means (e.g. Creation, the Incarnation, Christ’s Resurrection).
Reading Lewis’ book has got me thinking about the nature of the reality that we inhabit. He starts his argument by making the case that Reason and knowledge (i.e. our ability to perceive the reality of things outside of our own minds) are things which exist outside of the realm of Nature. In other words, we can only claim to have knowledge about something if our thoughts are genuine insights into realities beyond our minds. This is in opposition to the naturalist’s contention that our thoughts are merely feelings in our minds arising from chemical processes that have arisen from some blind evolutionary process (Lewis, Miracles, p. 21).
At this point, I’ll let you know that my goal here is not to make a full presentation of Lewis’ argument. If you’re looking for that, I will point you to his book. However, I do want to share how Lewis’ ideas have got me thinking and thereby return us to the topic of this post.
The implication of human reason coming from outside the natural world that we perceive with our five senses is that this ability has been given to us by something or someone outside of Nature. Obviously, as a Christian, I say that my ability to reason has been given to me by God Himself.
For example, by reason, I am able to deduce that the existence of created (or designed) things implies a creator. This deduction then leads to one of the classical arguments for the existence of God (i.e. the argument from design — we perceive patterns of design in nature and thereby deduce that there must be a Creator).
Further still, Lewis’ book has gotten me thinking about the ultimate nature of the reality that we inhabit. Which is more real: the created thing, or the creator? When I use the term real here, I’m talking about distinguishing the difference between something that is the product of thought and the one whose thoughts brought the created thing into being. In this sense, if I were to ask you which is real: the man William Shakespeare or his play Hamlet? You would say Shakespeare because William Shakespeare was an actual person whereas his play was something that he created.
Thinking along the same lines in regards to God and Creation leads us to say that God is more real than the creation that He has created. I see Scripture alluding to this ultimate reality in the prologue to John’s Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created…
…Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory — the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.
John 1: 1 - 3; 14 (New English Trans.)
In John’s prologue, we see our present reality as an expression of the word or thoughts of the Creator. Everything that we are aware of God or Jesus spoke into existence. These eternal words of God found their expression in the reality that we perceive around us.
Elsewhere, I see James referring to this ultimate reality when he describes our lives as being like “a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes” (James 4: 14). The reality of who we are isn’t that we are the product of the supposedly closed-system of nature. Rather, the truth of who we are is that we are eternal souls inhabiting physical bodies for a short time prior to our death and entrance into eternity. Furthermore, isn’t this the point of all of Scripture? Scripture tells us that the ultimate reality is that there is a God who has chosen to reveal Himself to us through the law and the prophets and finally through Jesus Christ.
This brings me back to my original thoughts on grace (i.e. a prayer that we pray before a meal) that inspired me to write this post. As I was praying before reading yesterday morning, I noticed that my prayer had much of the same form and structure as the prayers that I pray before I eat food. I was praying, “Dear God, thank you for this time this morning. Thank you for the opportunity to read. Please use what I read to help me to grow in my knowledge of you.”
I smiled as I thought that it wouldn’t take much to turn that prayer into something sounding akin to a standard prayer that I might pray at dinner time: “Dear God, thank you for these words that I am about to partake. Bless them to the nourishment of my soul so that I may be of greater service to you.”
This caused me to pause and think: What are we doing when we ask grace before sitting down to eat? We are thanking God for our food, and asking Him to bring nourishment to our bodies through it. However, in terms of the greater reality of God, food for our bodies is simply a symbol of the true food. This true food is God’s Word. Jesus alluded to this when his disciples returned to him after he had been talking to the woman at the well. Concerned with the fact that he hadn’t eaten, the disciples urged him to eat. However, Jesus replied to them saying, “I have food that you know nothing about…My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work” (John 4: 32, 34).
Are we able to partake of this same food that Jesus spoke of? The Christ follower knows that the answer to this is yes. Through the Scriptures we are able to learn God’s will and by His grace, through the Holy Spirit, He helps us to align our lives in conformity to His will.
Therefore, I see there is a reason why my prayer before reading resembled a blessing I might say before a meal. This was because I was asking God to feed my soul by giving me greater knowledge of Him. Food nourishes our body for a time; however, the nourishment of God’s Word is eternal. The nourishment that food provides is symbolic of the greater reality of the eternal nourishment of God’s Word.
Finally, as I have stated, the true food for our souls comes from reading the Bible; however, I also thank God for using C.S. Lewis to help me come to a deeper insight on this.