🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌
Our church just hosted a two-day women’s event. God’s presence was so palpable among us the second day that I choked up as I shared the idea He had given me the night before. The ladies were sitting at tables spread with abundance—gifts, flowers, hot drinks, snacks, beautiful decorations. They graciously received the idea I shared before our final time of worship.
“After this, you’ll go home, and you’ll look the same on the outside. You feel different now, but you go back to the same people, same jobs, and same needs. So instead of creating a beautiful worship environment for you tonight, I’m asking you to create your own. It’s a commissioning of sorts. We’re practicing in here what we can do out there.”
I set out baskets of tea light candles and communion cups. They cleared everything the day had put before them and created a holy place on the same surface where they’d just eaten dinner. The candlelit room could not have been more beautiful. Tiny, flickering flames illuminated the radiant faces of His beloved daughters worshiping Him.
Psalm 23 says that God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. I don’t often think of what I bring to that table. Daily, I walk into my house with arms overflowing—backpacks, shoes, water bottles, whatever else we've accumulated along the way—and plop the whole mess onto the table to deal with later. That imagery of my kitchen table feels a little too familiar to the table God has prepared for me. I keep my arms full until I buckle under the weight. I’ll come back to this after I’ve done what I need to do.
God knows me as well as He knows you. He knows how we’re wired, what we need, why we do what we do. We don't have to clean ourselves, or our tables, to come to Him. But this weekend I remembered the power of intentionally clearing a space to worship. Physically re-setting a space for worship does something inside of us too.
Our Father has prepared a table for us. Let’s not miss the feast.
Listen to “How He Loves” by Passion Music and Crowder.