Meal time

For years now we have been saying grace before our meal. You know the typical “thank you God for this food” type of prayer. For years just basic words came from my mouth. That means what? Do we pray before our meal just because? To me it starts to become (what I call it) pattern prayer. It means nothing to me. So what does it mean to Adonai? I am just praying to pray and get to the meal. Wow have I been missing out! I have taken a step back. You see, I have realized that my prayer before the meal has become lame, broken. This is my shot to give Adonai thanks for His goodness, yet I do not feel that I am really expressing my thanks from my heart. So I have made some changes. "And you shall eat, and be sated, and bless the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 8:10).

Wow, we shall eat and be sated and bless Adonai? Thus we express our gratitude to HaShem who nourishes the entire world with His goodness, with grace, mercy, and benevolence and with compassion. So along with our before meal prayer we have included an after meal prayer.