Granddaddy, why don’t you buy pre-blessed food?

“Granddaddy, why don’t you buy ‘pre-blessed food’? That way you wouldn’t have to pray before every meal.”
“Well, even if we bought this ‘pre-blessed food’ we would still give thanks before we ate it.”
“Why do we have to pray before every meal?”

I love grandchildren questions!

A couple of weeks ago this grandson had told me about pre-blessed food. I didn’t know anything about it so a couple of nights ago I Googled it. Turns out it is a comedy bit on YouTube. I didn’t watch it and I have no thoughts concerning it and this post is not about that video. I just wanted to share my answer to that great question: “Why do we have to pray before every meal?”

Why indeed? Why don’t we buy pre-blessed food. Or offer one big prayer at the beginning of every week or each day for every thing we will eat that week/day? My answer was simple,

“We give thanks before each meal as a way of showing our dependence on God for all we eat and thanking Him for this food that He has blessed us with. This is very personal so we thank God for what we are about to eat.”

If we don’t personally give thanks we tend to grow forgetful and presumptuous: I’m eating the food that I acquired through my hard work and my skill at cooking etc. Perhaps I should clarify that, maybe you wouldn’t but I know I would.

You may say, “OK, why not give thanks for every snack, too?” Why not? I read somewhere quite a long time ago that the ancient Jews had a blessing for every thing they did. Not a bad idea!

Anyway, that’s why we always pray before every meal.

For every creature of God is good,

and nothing to be refused,

if it be received with thanksgiving:

For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.