Let me ask you this, how many times do you hear something like, “who’s going to bless the food..” or “who’ll pray so God will bless this food” or a prayer that contains “Lord bless this food ….”? With such phrases that are everywhere around us, you’d think the Bible instructs us to bless the food before we eat.

I do not know how this started, but some person, oh the mighty power of the human being, at some point started saying phrases as such and they just caught on, caught on enough, that people would assume that it is in the Bible somewhere.

To bless, is to invoke divine care for, or to make something holy. So people all around in restaurants and at home bow their heads and ask God to make the food holy or ask God to care for the food?? Hmmm. So what’s wrong with saying that anyway? What’s wrong is that Jesus, God in human form on earth, did instruct us to give thanks when we eat for the food provided. The Lord’s Prayer has one request of a material nature in it, that being give us today our daily bread. Since we ask for it, it is good manners to thank for receiving when we ask.

God in essence is saying, “when you eat, remember who has made that available for you, and so that you won’t forget that, please give a prayer of thanks when you eat.”

Substituting a Thank you for a Give me (more blessings), is not a character builder rather diminishes character. So let us stop saying “bless this food” and start saying “THANK YOU God for this food.” I put together a booklet about 2 years ago about prayer. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out https://www.dropbox.com/s/b96drucoovj3tls/PrayerHmm.pdf?dl=0