I love the shepherd analogy of Psalm 23. God fully keeps His promises, He faithfully sees them through to the end. He leads people until each one finds their place to settle. At the end of the day, when the plans are complete, we are better off than we were before. Here are the four unmistakable traits of a shepherd that I can meditate on in my devotional prayer life.

He will cause us to:

1. move when we need to
2. lead and protect us along the way
3. bring us to new and fruitful lands
4. fully establish and settle us in them

These are big things to consider along the way, but God cares about the little things as well. For instance, praying before a meal – it matters to God what that looks like.

Everything that God has created is good; nothing is to be rejected, but everything is to be received with a prayer of thanks, because the word of God and the prayer make it acceptable to God. – 1 Timothy 4:4-5 GNT

The first thing I notice is that the actual emphasis is not on God blessing the food, but on thanking God for the blessing of providing food to eat. While it is good and proper for me to pray before a meal, it should not be done in a ritualistic, superstitious way. Nor should it be done to show others how spiritual we are. I remember my pastor taking me out to lunch one day and he suggested we not pray over our food as it was an unnecessary tradition. I quickly rejected that idea and am thankful that this was confirmed today as the right attitude to have and not to neglect prayer just because one thinks it could be traditional.

While the food we eat may not be pure – everything we eat is holy when received as His gift with thanksgiving and with prayer – that is what sanctified means. In other words, all food is sanctified by a grace before a meal. There is no formula as to what that prayer should look like, but if I keep referring everything to God as the giver of all – taking everything as a gift from God – I come with thanks to God from my heart and my prayer will reflect this.

Not that this is a formula prayer, but I found a prayer written, they say it may be the oldest form of Christian grace before a meal recorded in the Apostolic Constitutions. It is simple and not too long.

“Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who nourisheth men from very youth up, who givest meat to all flesh; fill our hearts with joy and gladness, so that we, always enjoying a sufficiency, may abound unto every good work in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom be ascribed to Thee glory, honour, and power unto the ages. Amen.”

“In speaking of our daily bread, we do not bid farewell to God’s glory, but we ask only what is expedient for Him. We come with our needs, expecting a positive response, but we do so, changed by our satisfaction in Him and our trust of Him. Because of that, we do not come arrogantly and anxiously telling Him what has to happen. Many things we would have otherwise agonized over, we can now ask for without desperation.” – John Calvin