Bless These Gifts

The Necessity of Praying Before Meals

Do you pray before a meal? If so, why? What led you to this practice, and have you stopped to ponder it recently? If you don’t pray before a meal, but strive to follow the Lord, I invite you to begin this practice. It seems to me that belief in a loving Creator demands that we bless our meals. Why? Let us investigate.

Food is paramount to human existence. From the beginning, man and woman partook in the bounty of creation. Every important event in Salvation history has a connection with food and meals. The fruit of the garden. The Passover meal. The manna in the wilderness. Christ’s bed in a manger. The Last Supper. The wedding banquet of the Lamb. To be alive is to thirst for and seek nourishment. We require sustenance to live, and thus in His love, the Lord has provided. Creation is abundant with sustenance for man. And so each meal we eat is tied back to the Lord. There is no separation between Creator and created. Each simple morsel we partake in is bound up in Salvation history.

Therefore, food is significant. It is bound up in Salvation. It is also a gift, delicious and varied beyond necessity. Like a dramatic sunset, food is not merely utilitarian, but also sublime. It, like all of God’s creation, is good. Thus, it is right and just that we give thanks for our meals. We pray before meals to thank the Lord for His bounteous gifts to us.

We also pray before meals to ask God’s blessing on the food, as well as ourselves. Acknowledging its significance in our lives as sustenance and gift, we are right to ask the Lord to bless our food. Likewise, we ask the Lord to bless ourselves because we too are worthy of His blessing. Praying before a meal affirms our dignity as His precious handiwork. To eat a meal without prayer is to remove God from your life at the most basic level. This is helping ourselves to food as if we were the sole provider for our life and wellbeing. This is joining our first parents as they turn their back on God and steal the forbidden fruit.

Thus, we must be intentional with every meal we consume. Because food is so bound up with the Lord, every meal is sacred. In light of this, we must reassess our eating habits. Do we merely eat to fuel our bodies? Or do we eat to participate in the mystery of God’s love for us?