Worship Changes EverythingSample

The Table 

In Luke 22 we read that before His suffering and death, Jesus gathered His disciples to break bread with Him at the table, that common and comforting center of many homes.

That’s where Jesus wanted to spend His last hours of fellowship:

“Go and prepare the Passover meal, so we can eat it together.”... Jesus and the apostles sat down together at the table. Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”

It is during this meal that Jesus teaches and challenges and comforts. He models the Lord’s Supper, a time when the body of Christ is to remember His sacrificial gift of blood and body.

He didn’t gather with them at the temple or in a synagogue, but just in an ordinary room, eating together at the table.

The table is a common, everyday place. I think that’s why it is so important to gather there as a family. It is a place to be nourished, to work, to laugh, and to fellowship. Over the years, my kitchen table has been filled with sewing machines, painting, coloring books, song lyrics, Mix-masters, cookbooks, women’s magazines, and more homework than you’d ever like to imagine. But what I’ve loved is that it is where we have learned how to work together as a family; it is where we’ve learned how to open our hearts to one another through laughter and tears. If my table could speak, it would surely tell tales about what has transpired upon it over the years: writing countless invitations, addressing hundreds of envelopes, poring over all kinds of cookbooks, making great meals, making terrible meals - and all the while that table has been a classroom for teaching and a sanctuary for our hearts.

Whether you are talking about finding a space for your kids, your friends, or your spouse, it is so beneficial to find a place where there can be vulnerability and openness and honesty, without the pressure of requiring a perfect answer or the need for an immediate rebuttal. A family needs a place where they have permission to be themselves with each other. 

The kitchen table can be a beautiful thing. Gather together there every chance you can. Try your best to have meals together - with no television or other distractions. Just you and yours. Have a no phones policy at the kitchen table. My dear friend Susan has a phone bowl on her kitchen table where all the phones go - no exceptions. It is amazing what you learn about your children over an unhurried meal with no distractions. Make the time.

Let Darlene help you rediscover a life of awe and wonder in her new book Worship Changes Everything. Click here.