Take Small Bites

As a first grade teacher, I had a choice at lunch--eat quickly in the minutes left over after helping my students or skip the meal (like some of my colleagues). My love of food says never miss a meal so I learned to pretty much gobble fast. I have been trying to relearn eating ever since.

Take small bites. Impossible if you've spent years eating as fast as possible. Shovel comes to mind.

But taking small bites works in a host of ways:

It helps us to savor our food.

It helps us to break our mountains of work into doable tasks.

It minimizes the worry zone that threatens to defeat us.

We obviously taste our food better with small bites. Of greater consequence is being overwhelmed by work and worry. Both magnify our situation and diminish asking God for help.

We are simply ants on a mountain, viewing but a speck of the big picture that God and time can pattern. We try to gobble up our fears by overwork and constant worry, because we think we only have a short time and little assistance to wade through whatever muck is before us.

Ask God for help. Take small bites. Realize we are only ants but God has the mountain in his view. He can take us where we need to go, giving us what we need, one small bite at a time.

Image: Bon appetit, 2010 (Andrey Pavlov)

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.