“It is not as we've seen, it is not as we've read, it is not as they've said. How we need to forget, we need to reset and be like children again. Are you hungry and have no money? You can sit at this table.” — Jess Ray, “Too Good”
Our dining room table wasn’t always the central focus of our home. My Dad was away for work a lot when I was really young, so we didn’t share a lot of meals together. It was only when Dad started working from home that tea time was a lot earlier so we could eat together as a family before us kids went to bed. It became a tradition that—except for weekends—meals were always shared there.
Memories before then are fuzzy now. The dining room table has come to hold many more vivid memories; ordinary quiet meals, extra chairs to accommodate friends and extended family, tense moments after particularly rough days where silence was heavy, nights where we lingered just to talk, or laugh until we couldn’t breathe, Saturday mornings wandering sleepily from our beds to join Mum and Dad where they sat reading the newspaper, countless birthday cakes, family discussions that didn’t exclude tears, small breaks throughout the day when you needed a moment of silence, or a place of ministry where Mum and Dad have had frequently counselled those with deep needs, including their own children.
The table really only had one rule: one must ask before leaving it. However, interestingly enough, no one ever needed to ask to pull up a chair and if one did, it was always met with a unanimous, undeniable, “Yes! Pull up a chair!” A request to join the table was almost considered a silly question. It was just naturally assumed that you knew the truth: that you were wanted, and you had a place there.
When I was growing up, I had very few friends. I had someone I called a best friend when I was five-years-old, however her family moved away within a year or two of our friendship and I haven’t seen her since. My early teen years were spent in homeschooling circles where I spent so much time trying to fit in and find myself a bestie that my desperation was probably part of the reason why I failed to form any lasting friendships. Those who had the potential to be substantial were snuffed short when the families moved away.
After the local homeschool group broke up, I went from the ages 14-18 without any true friends or community. We weren’t attending church during that season of life, so without six-weekly homeschooling get-togethers I had no fellowship outside of my family. I had penpals I dearly loved (one of whom remains a precious, lifelong friend) but they lived in other states, so I rarely—if ever—saw them. As I got older, my late teenage years were marked by the discovery of online community, and I made some incredible connections through a writers’ forum. Fast forwarding to today, I’m now a part of a thriving community and I have some amazing friends in my life who know me well, and love me through my highs and lows. I’m incredibly blessed. Yet the road to where I am now was paved with many lessons.
Somewhere along the line early on I picked up the message that friends were most important. I strived to build relationships with people, to form friendships through letter writing, mutual hobbies and interests, even if those things were a bore to me. I did my best to fit in, believing that was the way I would be accepted. Though my efforts were admirable because I didn’t wait for others to come be my friend, they were misplaced. I was compromising who I was in order to gain something, and any affection you earn by selling yourself is not real love.
I joined the writers’ forum with every intention of being myself. I went in with the mindset that if people didn’t like me, then it was their loss. It was too much work to pretend to be something I wasn’t and like things I didn’t, so I dropped the pose and found—to my surprise—how much people liked me. I made lasting friendships through that forum, and was encouraged and challenged more than I’d ever been before; learning to reach out to people and be a shoulder to cry on as well as championing them in their successful moments. It was a fundamental step in my journey of learning to build good relationships.
Shortly after this point I was invited by some new friends to join a Bible study/discipleship group at a neighboring church. Nervous and excited about being a part of a group of people around my age, I had no idea how that invitation would completely change the course of my life. Slowly learning to let me friendship-scarred heart be known, I stumbled through learning to love others and be loved myself. We sharpened one another through discussion, serving, miscommunications, planning subject matter, butting heads, and lots and LOTS of conversation. This group ended up supporting me and encouraging me through some very difficult transitions in my life which led to me eventually finding healing and attending their church and being able to call it home; a very new experience for me.
While friendship-building involves much selfless hard work, I'm beginning to see even the friends we make through the eyes of grace. Eucharisteo, "all is grace". Salvation is not the only thing that takes the grace of God. Scripture tells us that for us to have friends, we must be friendly. Grace helps us first become that friend. Which is why now I am grateful I had those years of solitude where I could become a friend to my family, grow stable and able to stand on my own, and become a person much more worthwhile being friends with once I became an adult. I’d done the work on myself, and am still working on myself. It starts with me, my attitude, and what I choose to believe. I found friendships much more readily when I believed the truth that I was accepted and worthy. It meant I didn’t have to earn people’s favour and attention. I simply believed I was worth favour and attention. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one nonetheless. True, this mindset has potential for pride to seep in, but if that does happen, it will undermine what you are trying to build. People are drawn to humility.
Second, grace brings us the right friends. Akin to the way grace made salvation available to us without forcing us to receive it, out of His grace, God puts people in our lives that He knows we need, and it is up to us whether we partake of those relationships. Whilst I now have people I am responsible to invest in and strengthen relationship with, these people didn't randomly appear in my life. Grace put them there.
When both are combined—grace to be a friend, grace to have a friend—beautiful things happen. I got to the place where instead of trying to prove I was worth knowing, I believed I was. Though the quality of friendships I have now are a result of a lot of hard work, sowing, investing, and giving, I no longer do those things in order to prove I'm a good person (at least, I'm learning not to). I focus on the other person. It’s what Jesus meant about how those who lose their life will find it. I found a lot more friends accidentally by loving them than I ever did striving to prove I was worth loving. I took my place at the table.
And that’s the truth; the truth is that grace sets a table right there in front of each of us. We all have a circle of faces around us, waiting for what we have to bring. We’ve been invited, but it is our responsibility to pull up a chair.
Having pulled up my own chair and sat down at the feast, sometimes I get distracted by those standing on the fringes. “Come on over!” I call. “There’s room for you here!” Sometimes I even leave my place at the table (without asking) to go stand with people on the outskirts, exhorting them to bring their whole selves to the table; as if they don’t understand the wording on the invitation, or that they don’t have the ability to drag a chair over. Or perhaps they scorn certain company, much like the elder brother of the prodigal son, and I feel compelled to justify their presence. Or maybe a flawed understanding of humility causes them to hang back. But standing there on the edges of the room, I fall into the trap of feeling guilty about my own seat. I feel shame when I sit down because I chose to come. I chose to do the work of salvation: receive. Take. Be given to. Honestly, salvation really does take a darn lot of courage; courage to believe you’re worth it. Courage to own that you’re loved, and trust that partaking of the feast and naming yourself a child of God brings gladness to the Father’s heart. So when I see others struggling to receive, I can feel guilty about my own gift.
The thing I need to remember is that no one forced me to take a chair. In all the years I spent begging for crumbs and scurrying beneath the feet of people already seated, I was never grabbed by the scruff of the neck and planted in a chair beside my heavenly Father. I was never bribed to the table, or deceived into taking a seat. I came to the end of my own efforts to a place where I recognized my singular value in Christ, and the fact He was holding the chair for me to sit down. It was not difficult. I didn’t have to strive for it or try to earn it. I simply had to humble myself and allow myself to be seated. Deuteronomy 30:11 reveals God telling us that this is not out of anyone’s reach, or is too difficult for us to receive. It’s not my place to compel others to take their place. It’s also not my place to feel guilty for those who may still hesitate to receive it. I don’t believe punishing myself by leaving the table to stand with those yet to take a chair honours God. Rest honours God, and where there is rest, God is (Exodus 33:14). I want to dwell in the presence of the Almighty, and not stand outside of that presence because I am tempted to feel guilty.
I wrote a song some months ago about friendships and the way God brings the right people into our lives at the right time. I sing from my experience in one line where I say, when the love in your heart still longs to be found, be ready for when God brings the right souls around. While there can be times we feel so lonely and far from community that we can't even see a table to be seated at, patience has its perfect work. The community you seek and the feast of fellowship you long for is there. It can just take time to be found.
This line lately has been coming to me over, and over again: there is a place for us at the table, but it is our responsibility to pull up a chair. I’m no longer taking responsibility for other people’s chairs. I choose to be seated at the table, even if it may be prepared in the presence of those who do not understand the feast or acknowledge the invitation (Psalm 23:5). There is room enough for everyone, and the responsibility—the faith to take—lies within our reach. You are invited! Come, pick up your chair and join the feast. If you’ve felt the isolation of being left on the fringes, you needn’t feel shame, guilt, or discouragement. The Father’s answer to your unspoken question is the same:
“Yes! Pull up a chair!”
Yes, yes, yes, dear friend. Believe it. Bring your whole self and come.
You have a place at the table.
“There will always, always be a place for you at My table, return to Me, My child.” — Josh Garrels, “At the Table”
