I was eating in a local restaurant. I observed a young couple as they occupied a booth across the room. When their food arrived, they held hands, bowed their heads, closed their eyes, and prayed before they ate.
Why did they do this? A cynic might say that it was just an expression of Bible-belt cultural religiosity. Someone else might accuse them of putting on a show of piety, like the legalistic Pharisees of Jesus’s day who made long public prayers for the sake of appearance.
I’d like to think they prayed because they were sincerely grateful to God. I hope it was because they believed it was important to express thanks to our Creator for his good gifts. Whatever their motivations, I offer three reasons to grace our eating and drinking with thanksgiving.
The example of Jesus
On more than one occasion our Lord blessed food before he ate with others. When he miraculously fed the five thousand, and later the four thousand, he looked up toward heaven and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving (Matthew 14:19, 15:36). When he ate the Passover meal in the upper room, he “took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples” (Matthew 26:26).
Jesus shared a meal with two of his followers after his resurrection. They did not recognize who he was until “he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them” (Luke 24:30). If the Son of God thought it was necessary to give thanks before eating, should we do less?
A habit of gratitude
The New Testament exalts thankfulness, “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). When the apostle Paul said that as a liberated Christian, he was free to eat all kinds of foods, he was careful to add, “with thankfulness” (1 Corinthians 10:30, 1 Timothy 4:3). So we find him aboard a ship giving thanks to God for food in the presence of unbelieving prisoners, soldiers, and seamen, “in front of them all” (Acts 27:35).
In his instructions about foods and Christian liberty, Paul said, “He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God” (Romans 14:6). In the same letter to the Romans he warned against ingratitude as a symptom of ungodliness (Romans 1:21). The Christian way of life is to cultivate a lifelong habit of gratitude, for all of life’s blessings, including nourishing food (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Consecrated by prayer
Another reason to pray for God’s blessing on our meals is because God created food and “everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:5). “Consecrated” means set apart or dedicated for a good purpose.
The good purpose of God’s gift of food is to satisfy our hunger and to promote our health. Objectively, the food is consecrated by the word of God which declares his creation as “good” (Genesis 1). Subjectively, the food is consecrated by prayer as we acknowledge where these gifts come from and we say “thank you!” The foods which sustain us are transformed into life-giving energy as they are consecrated for our use by our gracious Creator.
Here are three good reasons to give thanks to God for our food before we eat it. Jesus did it. The Bible tells us to do it. Prayer dedicates the food for our benefit. It is the right thing to do.
Recently, I enjoyed a round of golf with friends. Three of us went to the clubhouse for lunch. When we got our food, one of my companions said matter-of-factly, “Let me bless this.” Then he prayed simply, expressing thanks to God for the food, and for a beautiful day on the golf course.
Why did he do that? I believe it was because he knows where the blessing of food comes from, and he wanted to express appreciation on behalf of all of us. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Pastor Randy Faulkner