Yesterday was World Food Day. No, that it not a time to eat all the world’s food! It is an attention call to the problem of hunger. I’m not talking about the cravings you feel when you pass a fast food billboard, but the problem of illness and death that comes from undernutrition. It is estimated that one in eight people in the world suffers from chronic undernourishment.* That’s about 870 million people who are sick or starving because of a lack of food. Meanwhile I sit in my air-conditioned home with a pantry, refrigerator and freezer full of food that I am praying won’t consume me. Yesterday was a day that reminded me that making amends for the harm I have done as a compulsive overeater is more than just putting down the fork and getting on a treadmill; it means redistributing some resources.
I had enough to support my eating habits when I was overeating. Can I really claim I can’t support a local food pantry or a world food charity now that I am free? As I pray for daily deliverance from my difficulties, I recommit to “those I would help” in the Third Step Prayer. When so many are sick and dying from lack of something I have abused in abundance, who am I failing to help?
James 1:27 (NIV)
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
*2013 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics, World Hunger Education Service. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world