“And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and break the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided He among them all.” (Mark 6:41)
For as long as I can remember when I was growing up at home Daddy always said the blessing before meals. Of course, the prayer of blessing always included thanksgiving. If you must look beyond yourself to find a precedent for a meal-time blessing, look at the offering of blessing and thanks where Jesus fed five thousand on one occasion and four thousand on another.
Now that I am grown and my wife and I have children, grand children and great grand children it is one of those expected things we continue to do before meals. The little ones respectfully bow their heads during the blessing.
Did you notice how short Jesus’ prayer of blessing is? When I was much younger than now, a six year old cousin of mine had endured about all the blessing he could stand and in the middle of his dad’s lengthy blessing he spoke up and said, “amen, amen, amen.”
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