Gruel is nourishing.

“Thank you, Lord, for this food we are about to eat. We pray You bless it to nourish our bodies. In Jesus’s name, Amen.” This is a pretty standard way to pray before eating, right? But it suddenly strikes me that in all the pre-meal prayers I’ve ever heard, I think no one (including me) has ever asked God to “make the food taste really good and help us enjoy it fully.” And why not?

If we’re going to pray God will make it nourishing, doesn’t it seem just as sensible to ask Him to make it enjoyable? Surely He already knows most of us are at least as interested in the pleasure of eating as we are in the nutritional value of it. Very few of us are so perverse that we only consider nutritional value. Are we embarrassed to admit we’re enjoying the mouths and noses that God gave us when He made our bodies? Does it not please God to watch us delight in His gifts?

So here’s what I’m going to pray tonight for dinner: “Thanks for the yummy grub, Lord. Help me enjoy it as much as these nifty taste buds You gave me will allow.”