God and Food

 

image credit: Dorcas Mbuyi 

Written by: Dorcas Mbuyi  

 

 

I grew up quite shy, but I wasn’t born that way. Circumstances made me identify that way. As a child, I was fearless, outspoken, and full of life. But somewhere along the way, I started retreating into myself. Maybe it was the weight of people’s opinions, the quiet fear of being misunderstood, or the subtle ways of life teach us to shrink. Whatever it was, by the time I was grown, I had mastered the art of staying in the background never too loud, never too seen. I assumed this was just who I had become, but God knew otherwise.

 

Then, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, I had this random urge to start recording myself while cooking. It didn’t make sense at first. I wasn’t a professional chef, and I had never been one to put myself in front of a camera. But something about it felt natural, almost freeing. The more I recorded, the more I fell in love with the process not just with cooking, but with seeing myself, hearing my own voice, and embracing who I truly was. It was as if God was reintroducing me to myself, peeling back the layers of fear and showing me the joy of simply being me.

 

Image credit: Dorcas Mbuyi (this picture was taken on January 23rd, 2024). After cooking this meal, it made sense why God had me focus on how food has many elements and needs practice to get it right. That’s the same with life. Sometimes, you just need to keep trying until you taste God’s favour and His goodness that surrounds you.

 

For the first time in years, I wasn’t overthinking how I looked or sounded. I wasn’t worried about whether people would judge me. I was just doing something I loved, and God was using it to teach me something far deeper. He was showing me that I didn’t need to hide, that I wasn’t made to be invisible. Through something as simple as a cooking page, He was revealing the person He had created all along.

That’s the thing about God, He doesn’t always move in the ways we expect. We think transformation comes through grand moments, but sometimes, it happens in the quiet, in the ordinary, in the seemingly insignificant. In John 6, when Jesus saw the crowd of five thousand people, He turned to Philip and asked, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip immediately thought in human terms, calculating the cost, the impossibility. But then there was Andrew, who pointed to a boy with five barley loaves and two small fish. It wasn’t much, but in Jesus’ hands, it became more than enough.

 

image credit: Dorcas Mbuyi (this meal was cooked on the 18^th of October 2023. The last meal that I remember posting on my Instagram page before taking a break. As you can see this meal consists of not just of a specific ingredient but it gives you a variety of options to eat from. Not only healthy for your body but also your spiritual mind).

That’s exactly how God works in our lives. He takes the little we have, the things we dismiss as unimportant and He multiplies them for His purpose. I never thought a simple urge to record myself cooking would lead to such a deep transformation. But God doesn’t need much to do something great. He just needs our willingness.

 

Now, when I look back, I see it so clearly. God was never trying to make someone new, He was simply showing me who I had been all along. And if He can use something as small as a cooking page to teach me that, then I know He can use anything.