I pray before every meal. I thank God for the meal and then I conclude by saying "We pray that you will bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and our bodies to Your service." It is a common prayer request I have heard many people make.
Recently, I was struck by the irony of that prayer request. Can we legitimately ask God to bless our food when we are praying over a plate filled with non-nutritious, carbohydrate-laden, fat-packing, sugar-raising food? I have done this for years not thinking about what I was asking. What are we expecting God to do? Turn the high-calorie food into low-calorie? Transform the cookies into fruit. Melt the fat off the Boston Butts?
When you think about it, we are asking God to do a nutritional miracle at most of our meals. It is like asking God to bless us as we go rob a bank or as we cheat on our income taxes, etc. If we keep gaining weight, get diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., can we really be angry at God for failing to bless the food which, in many cases, has been a factor to our deteriorating health?
The next time we ask God to bless our food, we need to make sure that we can legitimately ask Him to bless it. If we ask God to enable the food to be used to the nourishment of our bodies, then make sure that it is a healthy, nutritional meal you are about to consume? If we are asking God to help us overcome some physical issues, make sure you are not hindering the process by consuming unhealthy food.
Before we ask God to bless our food, we need to make sure it is worth blessing!
Jim
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