Table for One

On the healing hospitality of God

August is upon us—I just can’t even. Can’t even believe it. Can’t even hold it all. Can’t even measure the journey. It’s been such a summer of transition.

I felt as though God gave me words following the Outpouring at Asbury—Walk more slowly. My steps are more slow and intentional these days. I don’t expect that will last for very long. The kids’ school schedule will kick in, my work will gain momentum. But I am paying attention a bit more to the slow move of God and see what there is to find.

In honor of moving slowly and finding healing in the hospitality of God, here’s a reprint of my very first Substack from early 2024.

Thanks to each of my kind and gentle subscribers for accompanying me on the journey. It’s an honor.

Here’s Table for One:

The second to last verse of Psalm 23 captures my imagination.

You prepare a table before me.

The God of the Universe sets a table for me. It’s absolutely personal and even intimate. Not even a banquet for several guests, but a table for one.

I love planning dinner parties for friends. Gathering people around a table is the best kind of evening in my mind. Whether it’s an order-in veg pizza or a simple roast chicken and green salad, it doesn’t matter. Light a few candles, pull chairs up the table and brew good coffee and I can’t think of a better way to spend an evening.

But the idea that the God who holds the cosmos together would prepare a table with great intentionality for me or you is radical, incomprehensible hospitality.

My imagination sparks with a cozy table in a kitchen beside a roaring fire. A fire crackles (because of course there is a wood fire in my imaginary kitchen), with a plate of the most delicious scones, steaming coffee (with my signature need for my own half-and-half pitcher), and a bowl overflowing with flowers. God, the host, sets the table, pours the coffee, and creates the space. A table for one with God.

In the presence of my enemies.

The psalmist certainly was able to name his enemies, one by one, tribe by tribe, nation by nation. And certainly, some of us on the planet can do this as wars battle around the globe. If for no one else, Psalm 23 is for those in the valley of the shadow of death. Come, Lord Jesus.

Perhaps you or I can think of a handful of people who really don’t like us, or maybe even one or two people who wish us ill—but most likely, they don’t think of us at all, and maybe that hurts worse. Or perhaps it is someone who fired us from our last job who we have assigned malicious intent (which may or may not be true). It is more likely our enemies are somewhere out there as political enemies or the idea of people who think very differently (and in our minds dangerously) than us on social or religious issues.

But I want to take it another step. My enemies are much more than the things out there that threaten to take me down. My enemies perch around me, waiting to claim my mind and heart, like cawing crows.

Anxieties, physical illness, stress, fear, insecurity, striving, trying too hard, perfectionism, ruminating on uncontrollable outcomes, overload, my kids’ issues, my personal trauma crowd into my thoughts and feelings. These are my real enemies.

The antidote of God to our deepest enemies is a gracious and incomprehensible display of hospitality to our souls. In my deepest places of grief, heartache, fear and striving, God invites me to a table for one, with God as host.

The presence and hospitality of God is our healing, our restoration and our renewal.

The last part of the verse is:

You anoint my head with oil,

My cup overflows.

The hospitality of God does not end with a feast before us, but God is the host that keeps refilling our cup and blessing us with a reminder of our identity.

Each drop of oil on our head is the whisper of God reminding us of our deepest identity as the beloved of God.  

Today, the Creator of the Universe sets a feast of hospitality around you.  Hosting you with the utmost care and attention, the very presence of the Omniscient One abiding with you, meeting you with absolute goodness, in the presence of all you carry.

A healing table for one, hidden in God.

Thanks for reading.