It's funny that as soon as we got a bigger kitchen table, children from the neighborhood seemed to emerge from all directions to sit around it, like the "if you build it, they will come" idea playing out in real life.
At the beginning of the summer, there was a very intentional invitation. Come inside, we would say. You're welcome here. Gather around the table with us as we share a meal and talk about our day. When they left, they would tell their friends about the cute baby they got to hold or mention that there exists a table around which there is "extra food," an oddity in a neighborhood where scarcity is the norm and children fend for themselves.
And it organically multiplied from there.
I stood at the counter prepping the meal, the kids busy behind me with their assigned chores. As my hands ripped systematically through the cold head of lettuce, I thought about the phrase, when you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.
I love the sentiment behind it--one of generosity, inclusion, and community. The importance of building bridges and gathering together in solidarity and fellowship. The idea of sharing what you have instead of hoarding it for yourselves.
When you have more than you need....
That part bothers me a little with its strong, Confucius-like qualities. You see, God is a God of abundance, of plenty, of enough. And when there's not enough? He makes it enough. That's what He does. Jesus turned Confucius' popular Golden Rule on its head and said instead, "so whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them." {Matthew 7:12}
When you have more than you need...
The phrase is limiting and narrow in a culture that has forgotten the line that exists between need and want. As I rinsed the lettuce shreds out in the sink, I thought, how sad. Because when we live life in a comfortable little bubble of our human limitations, we fail to leave room for God. How sad that we miss out on the miracles, the provision, and the overflow that happens when we step out beyond ourselves, beyond what seems possible with what's in front of us.
When you have more than you need...
But what about when you don't?
I was moved to tears as I leaned over the counter, chopping up cucumbers and recalling all the times we looked at what was for dinner and glanced around at all the mouths it was supposed to feed and wondered how exactly that was going to work out. All the times that God took our meager offering of loaves and fish and multiplied it to feed the masses. And unless the offering was macaroni and cheese, there was almost always leftovers.
Today we invited two people over for lunch. Then a third asked if it would be okay to stay. The third went to retrieve brothers, which became four and five. Six walked arrived as we were finally getting a very late lunch on the table, well into the afternoon. A quick call to the daughter playing next door, and we figured, at this point, what's one or two more?
When the neighbor and her grandson walked in the front door, our number had swelled to 17 in all. Come on in, my daughter said to her friend, the little neighbor boy, as they stepped inside with grubby fingers and dirt-stained pants. It's okay. See? This is my family...
And I could see it unfolding before my very eyes: God purposed to give me a tangible example of His incredible ability to provide. He was putting feet on my thoughts at the kitchen sink, just to show me He could.
I'll do you one better today: even when you don't have enough, build a bigger table anyway.
Because when we step foot beyond the tangible, beyond our resources, beyond our abilities--that is the fertile soil in which miracles grow. It's the soil from which the Creator of the cosmos flung the stars into place and crafted the very ground on which we stand, the soil from which He formed the shape of man. It's the same soil in which God plants our temporal fear and doubt, and right before our very eyes, gives birth to new life.
Even when you don't have enough--especially when you don't have enough--build a bigger table anyway, and watch God work and move in ways you never would've imagined. Because it's in community gathered around a table where the best of life's lessons are learned. Regardless of the color of your skin, the orientation of your gender compass, your various sins and preferences, in that moment, you're all just a bunch of hungry people sharing a meal.
The ground is as level beneath the kitchen table as it is at the foot of the cross.
With a warm cup of coffee in hand and a full belly after the meal, she utters, I'm so glad I came over here today. I just feel really...loved.
Yeah, food and family will do that.
We all need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Why cling to your meager share of loaves and fish when God wants to show you a miracle? When He's waiting just past the margin of safe and a hair beyond logic to multiply your belief more exponentially than you ever could've dreamed?
So often, we forsake the unseen for the comfort and the safety of the known. We fail to see that the unknown, the holy ground on which God Himself treads, is found in reckless abandon. It's found in love that knows no bounds, in lavishness that makes no sense, in generosity that doesn't add up.
It's found in FAITH.
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This post is part of a series I’m writing for the month of October called, Walking in Humility: Learning to Abide with God in the Everyday. If you’re interested in the reading the rest of the series, you can find it here. Enjoy!