4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,
6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
-Genesis 2:4-9, NIV
It’s the table grace we pray before dinner each evening, the same table grace my family prayed when I was growing up. Using her best first-grader phonics, Ellie painstakingly wrote out our dinner prayer:
God is great.
God is good.
Let us thank him
for our food. Amen.
She proudly presented me with her prayer. “Look, Mama!” she said.
“It’s beautiful!” I replied. “Can you tell me about the picture at the bottom?”
“That’s God,” she said, “filling up the earth with water.”
Without realizing it, my six-year-old was illustrating the second chapter of Genesis, in which God brings forth streams that will water a dry, barren, dusty earth, streams that will nourish a garden and the humans who will tend it, streams that will flow with life itself.
If you’re looking for a table grace for your Thanksgiving dinner, friends, I’d suggest this one. It’s tried and true. What’s more, perhaps Ellie’s picture can remind you that when we’re thanking God “for our food,” we’re thanking God for the whole of it — the food itself, the ground on which it grew or grazed, and the water that sustains that ground. God’s hand is over all of it.
Blessings,
Pastor Candy
Give thanks to God, friends, and remember:
Our God is bigger than coronavirus.
Our vision is bigger than coronavirus, too.
We are people blessing people.
We are Wesley Church.
Want to know more?
- Learn about our church and its ministries: https://wesleychurch.com/
- Make a gift to support our mission: https://wesleychurch.com/giving-2/
- View our recent messages: https://wesleychurch.com/sermon-message-on-video/
- View previous devotionals: https://wesleychurch.com/pastor-candys-devotionals-2/
