What Is God’s Favorite Food?

In a poll of several hundred experts, angel food cake was voted the preferred cuisine of heaven. Angel hair pasta  came in second. But Angel Food Ice Cream kept showing up as  a favorite from kids in Memphis, Tennessee. Is this some new flavor?

The investigative reporter in me couldn't resist uncovering this mystery. When I discovered there's an ice cream brand in Memphis by this name, I called its office.  Marketing director Preston Klinke said: "God hasn't told me  directly, but if I had to guess about heaven's favorite flavor,  I'd say it's homemade vanilla or vanilla bean. The flavor is heavenly."

Laia, 14, disagrees. "The fruit that was growing on the tree in the middle of the garden" was God's favorite food.  "God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat it because it was His tree."

Sounds fishy, Laia.

Fish! That's it, says Kate, 6. "God's favorite food is goldfish because the streets are paved with gold."

Philip, 12, says everyone is wrong. God doesn't have time to eat because we keep him very busy. "God does not  have a favorite food because he doesn't eat because he is  always watching over us."

It's true God is always watching over us, but he's not trapped by his responsibilities. Jesus took time to enjoy meals with his disciples. In Jesus' time, eating together was a way of saying you had a relationship with someone. The ancients might change our modern saying, "you are what you eat" to "you are the people with whom you eat."

Jesus astonished everyone when he accepted a dinner invitation from a tax collector named Levi. As much as people  hate taxes today, it was far worse in ancient Israel. Tax collectors were considered traitors working for foreign oppressors, and it was no secret that many became wealthy by fleecing their own countrymen.

The Pharisees--religious leaders--recoiled in shock when they saw Jesus eating with Levi and his fellow tax collectors. They thought Jesus ought to associate only with society's elite. Later, Jesus described the righteousness of the Pharisees as a cup that's clean on the outside but dirty on the inside (Luke 11:39).

According to Jesus, the way to get clean on the outside is to be clean on the inside. And for that, it is necessary to eat bread, but not like any bread you've ever bought at the bakery.

Emily, 12, is on to something when she says: "God's favorite food is bread because he saved the Israelites with manna (a kind of bread). And, he had the Passover with his disciples sharing the bread, which was the symbol of his body. That was the last food he ate before he died on the cross to save us from our sins."

Several times Jesus compared himself to bread: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst" (John 6:35). At the Passover meal before his death, Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, "This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19).

So if Jesus' body is bread and we need bread to live, then if we eat this spiritual bread, we should get a full soul. When we think we need food, we might just be hungry for a bite of God. I guess chocolate isn't the most important thing in life!

During Jesus' ministry he turned down an offer of food from his disciples by saying: "I have food of which you do not know. My food is to do the will of him who sent me" (John 4:32, 34).

Try chewing on that idea.

Carey Kinsolving is a syndicated columnist, producer, author, speaker and website developer. To see more material like this, visit www.KidsTalkAboutGod.org. The Kids Talk About God website contains free, online content for children and families. See Carey’s Kid TV Interviews. Hear a book talk. Print free lessons from the "Kids Color Me Bible" and make your own book. Let an 11-year-old girl take you on a trip around the world in the Mission Explorers Streaming Video. Print Scripture verses illustrated by child artists. Receive a complimentary, weekly e-mail subscription to our Devotional Bible Lessons.

Bible quotations in this Bible lesson are from the New King James Version. 

Copyright 2007 Carey Kinsolving