Why Do We Pray at Meals?

“When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.” Deuteronomy 8:10

“Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blest.” “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His mercy endures forever.” Have you ever heard those words? Maybe they sound familiar because many people use those two prayers before and after meals. As God’s children, many of us say grace or pray before and after we eat. The idea of thanking God for our food dates back to the Bible. We can go to Deuteronomy 8:10 where it says: “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.” Jewish families said thanks to God at each meal, and Jesus was no exception. Before he handed out the bread and fish at the feeding of the 5,000, Matthew 14:19 says: “And [Jesus] directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves.” His prayer probably went something like this: “Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world, who causes to come forth bread from the earth.” We also read when Jesus was about to celebrate the first Communion, the Bible says: “Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it” (Matthew 26:16).

The believers in the early Christian church continued that wonderful practice. We read in Acts 27:35 that Paul: “took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all.” 

We should also continue the practice of praying before and after each meal. Before the meal we ask God to bless our food. That’s when we can pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blest.” That prayer is not found in the Bible. After the meal, we like to say thank you to God for giving us the blessings that we enjoyed. That’s when we often say, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His mercy endures forever.” Those words date back to the book of 1 Chronicles when David said a prayer of thanks. But that’s not the only place we find them. The exact same words are repeated in Psalms 107, 118, and 136.

God does not command us to pray before and after meals, but it is a wonderful way to show our gratitude to God for being so good to us.

 Praise, O praise our God and King;
Hymns of adoration sing;
For His mercies still endure
Ever faithful, ever sure.

(From the book “Living for Jesus” by Reynold R. Kremer)