MSG, Going Organic, and Jesus

More and more people are getting into organic food. The movement is not lost on retailers who have decided that for anything they can label "organic" they can charge double. I find that most people who go organic also become little encyclopedias about the multiple dangers of non-organic food which I like to call "regular food". I used to be blissfully ignorant that my milk was laced with steroids and my frozen lasagna chock full of the mysterious and evidently demonic MSG. Whenever I talk to an organic friend about food I find myself being virulently skeptical. Maybe you can sense it in what I have written so far. I question and I challenge and I defend Stouffers and to be honest I am much less educated about all of it than my organic friend. So, the question is why. Why do I battle so fiercely with so little ammunition? I think the answer is pretty simple. I don't want to change. I like my diet. I like frozen lasagna and Ritz crackers and just about anything with high fructose corn syrup. So, all this has me thinking about Jesus. Jesus comes into my life and offers to provide me through his sacrifice on the cross a meaning in life that I have never really had. It is a life of freedom from being addicted to approval of others, or position, or money or pleasure, or how I look or how my kids are turning out. It is instead a life of gratitude and freedom and forgiveness and grace that fills the deepest recesses of my soul. It is maybe why Jesus called himself the "bread of life". My organic friends would say that MSG and corn syrup and the other things that have become such staples in my life increase my appetite without ever really satisfying it. These are the things that are causing the obesity epidemic in America. All of the things that I use to fill my soul are the same. They increase my appetite without ever really satisfying me. But, man oh man, I love the way they taste. Letting the truth and the power of the Gospel go deep down means a fundamental change in my diet. I don't like change but the price Jesus paid for me to be filled is steep. And I thought organic was expensive. So, every time I look at a label I will remind myself of the cross, the deep love of Jesus and the wonder and power of the real Bread of Life.