Daily Bread: Eating Together with Intention

There’s something sacred about the kitchen table. Not just on feast days or special occasions, but in the ordinary hours of an ordinary Wednesday, when someone’s late, the toddler only wants toast, and there’s a spill under someone’s chair (again). Even in that chaos, or maybe especially in it, God is present. And He’s teaching us how to see Him in the breaking of the bread.

In this first day of The Slow Work of God, we’re starting at the table. Because that’s where discipleship often begins, not with a grand gesture, but with daily bread.

The Table as Holy Ground

Eating together as a family, a couple, or a community is one of the most powerful daily rhythms we can practice. In the midst of our busy lives, gathering around the table provides sacred, intentional time to pause, connect, and reflect on God’s goodness.

This isn’t just something that “feels nice” or “brings people closer together.” God designed His people to live this way. We see this pattern again and again in Scripture, and one of the clearest examples comes in Exodus 13:1–16. After delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt, God established special days and rhythms for His people to remember His faithfulness, and they weren’t confined to synagogue rituals. These holy days included real, shared experiences: food, storytelling, and family gatherings.

"When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites… you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord… And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.’” —Exodus 13:5–8

Do you see what’s happening? God wove the remembrance of salvation into the meal itself. He didn’t just say, “Remember this in your heart.” He said, “Sit down together. Eat this food. Tell the story.”

This is why the table is more than a place to eat. It’s a place to encounter God. To pass down faith. To say, “This time matters. These people matter. And most of all, God matters.”

The Atmosphere of Holiness

In our home, we’ve found that simple choices can create a sense of sacred space. The dinner doesn’t have to be fancy, sometimes it’s a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, but it’s not the food that makes it special. What makes it holy is that we carved out the time.

We say, “This is important. This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to eat together. We’re going to talk. We’re going to experience holy time.”

We don’t allow phones at the table, not from the children or the adults. No distractions. For one hour, this is God’s time. We play a gentle playlist in the background, light candles, and turn off the other lights.

The effect is quiet magic. My children still love the atmosphere, especially the candlelight. It’s a visual cue that says: This time is different. This time is holy.

And for the next hour, we talk, we laugh, and we eat. As I look around, the soft glow of the candles reflects on every face, and what I see is a newfound sense of wonder.

This is what eating together does: it takes the chaos and rush of our lives and forces us to slow down. It gives us, not just any kind of time, but God’s time.

Print out one of these beautiful prayer cards for your table.

Small Practices, Deep Roots

You don’t need to turn dinner into a liturgy (though you certainly can!). But here are a few simple ways to eat with intention this week:

• Light a candle before meals I cannot emphasize enough the effect a candle or candles has at the dinner table. It immediately marks the moment as holy and sacred and brings a different atmosphere to the meal.

• Say grace slowly Choose a prayer that means something to your family and pray it together before each meal. This creates a beautiful sense of tradition and meaning. Here’s a free PDF I created for you with beautiful, traditional prayers before a meal. Print them up, fold them in half and they will stand on your dining or kitchen table -

  
  

Prayers Before A Meal.pdf

Download PDF • 86KB

• Ask one meaningful question Try: “Where did you see beauty today?” or “What are you thankful for?”

• Bake bread together Let your kids knead the dough, smell it baking, and break it open warm. It’s a slow and sacred act.

• Host a Sunday meal It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Make space for someone new or someone in need. Hospitality is always holy.

  
  

Whether you’re gathering around a picnic table, the kitchen counter, or a cloth-covered dining room table, remember: the sacred isn’t reserved for feast days. It’s waiting right here, in the rhythm of your everyday meals.

In these ordinary moments, we taste the holy.

Next, we’ll talk about prayer in the summer season. But for now, light a candle, put away the phones, and break bread with the ones you love.

Let the slow work begin!