Turning the Table

A book I just finished and would highly recommend is Louie Giglio’s Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants. It’s a new spin on the legendary David and Goliath account with a focus on 5 common giants in our lives: fear, rejection, addiction, anger, and comfort, all well tied to the narrative of God’s victory through David.

One particular point Louie brings up, I want to use as the foundation for today and then expand upon to create a practical spiritual exercise to help us get real about our relationships and life direction.

In the well-known passage of Psalm 23, verse 5, David states: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Louie makes 2 great points: 1-It doesn’t say “in the absence of my enemies,” which is, of course, what we prefer, but rather it says, “in the presence.” 2-He encourages us to “not give the enemy a seat at our table.” (There are many more truths in this section of the book so I’m not giving much away.)

So, here’s the deal: In our crazy, rapid-fire culture, inviting people to eat with us in our homes at our dinner table is a rarity these days because most families don’t even do that anymore. But we would all agree that when we invite people to our homes to eat at our table and fellowship, there is either a solid, established relationship or a desire for one, hence the dedicated time.

Think about yourself sitting at the head of a large dining room table with 9 chairs left. Right now in your life, who has a seat at your table?

Right away let me caution you that, often, the people you would quickly name by assumption really no longer have a seat at your table, if you are honest in your own heart. They are actually on the fringe of your life. Take, for example, one of your own family members, if it has been longer than you can recall the last time you spent one-on-one time with that person and really communicated, then do they really still sit at your table?

And then there are people you would insist do not have a seat there but, in reality, they do. Someone with whom you ended a relationship quite a while ago but you despise, are bitter toward, maybe even hate, someone you would never want at your table, yet, because you carry them around with you everywhere in your heart, they are always seated there, way closer to your own chair than you would admit. The truth is you keep them seated there so you can keep your eye on them so they don’t ever hurt you again.

So, take a few minutes to draw a rectangle, write your own name at the head then draw 9 lines around the table. Next, write out the seating chart for your life in this season.

Now that you’ve got your names, who is it that:

1-Used to have a seat, doesn’t anymore, and needs to be seated once again?

2-Has a seat, but for all the wrong reasons, and you need to allow them to exit the dining room forever?

3-The Lord placed there and whom has the enemy placed there?

And to echo Louie’s warning, since we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood (Eph. 6) then “don’t let the enemy have a seat at your table” but always, always, be certain that you have room for Jesus, then the rest of the guests at your table will be fine. In fact, here’s a good plan: get up and ask Him to sit in the head chair.