Praying before Meals

Lately, I've been thinking about the whole praying before meals thing. I've never really given much thought about why we do other than we're supposed to be grateful to God for all that he gives us and tell him often. No scripture or biblical precent comes to mind as a defence for praying before the meal.

So, we have recently tried praying after a meal or segueing with it into our family worship time. Sometimes, we have thanked God for the food at our bedtime prayers.

Of note, I flipped through Frank Schaeffer's book, Crazy for God, passing the airport recently (I don't recommend; in some respects it seems like a type of dancing on his dad's grave). One of his "fondest" memories with his dad, Francis, is when they would take trips together and purposefully neglected a meal time prayer. I strongly recommend Edith Schaeffer's well-written tome of the history of their ministry, L'Abri.