You Have a Place at the Table

 

 

Brennan Manning in Abba’s Child wrote this:  “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” 

 But what is the true self? The true self is the person God had in mind when He created you, before you began hiding with fig leafs, masks and personas. We all do it. The true self is the self receiving their identity in the delight of the Father, celebrating their smallness, at rest, at play, and at prayer.

Here we look at two obstacles to living as the true self and how Practicing the Presence of God begins to heal both the orphan and the self-reliant.

 

 

Six week old Xavier wore a white gown crocheted by Kim Maxwell during our board meetings. She had sewn a tiny gold cross onto the bodice.

 

Xavier’s baptism was late August during the parish campout at a Sunday service held in camp chairs and within view of Lake Michigan. We processed to the edge of the water for the baptism. The wind was strong and the waves were high that day. And when Andrew prayed over the water, we later imaginatively wondered how much of the lake was transformed into holy water. A bowl’s worth? Ten feet? Miles?

 

Xavier was the last to be baptized. A few adults and five children sat on the beach with towels wrapped around them, already having been immersed.

 

I wandered into the waves to help. To hold. Honestly, I was there to keep watch over a husband who in my mind was a little too cavalier with infants. Exhibit A? When our oldest was two months old, Andrew packed him in a snowsuit, strapped him into a backpack with a plastic umbrella and waded into a stream to go flyfishing. I may have been delirious from lack of sleep. This newest edition was not getting out of my sight. But I had nothing to fear. Andrew sealed Xavier’s nose and mouth and then slid him through the next wave in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then as he pulled him close to sooth Xavier’s tears, he dipped his thumb in oil and marked him with the sign of the cross.

 

“You are marked as Christ’s own forever, “he whispered as he wiped oil on the uncreased forehead, side to side, hairline to brow.

 

When the early church did baptisms, they took off representations of their old identity, the clothes they walked in with. They even put down their given name. Then after they were baptized sometimes in a pool in the shape of a cross, a sign of death, they were given an alb, a baptismal robe, a new set of clothes in pure white. And after much prayer, the community gave them a new name.  

 

New creation. New name. New family. New identity. 

 

 

 

It’s been ten years of bedtimes and each night I’ve made the sign of the cross on his forehead with my thumb, side to side, hairline to brow and spoken these same words over this same boy in one long echo, “You are marked as Christ’s own forever.”

 

 

 

We teach that once this cross is given, it’s like an invisible mark always there whether we’re walking through the grocery story or city center. It’s the Holy Spirit’s seal and baptism is our adoption ceremony.

 

 

The God of the Universe, who commands wind and waves and they obey, who breaks five small loaves into enough for thousands, wanted us as the children around his dinner table.

 

 

At the continual feast in the kingdom each child has an etched nameplate in front of their seat. Julie. Heir to the King. Matthew. Joint-heir with Christ. Lynne. Beloved daughter. Greg. Beloved son. Unfathomable, yet much ink has been spilled throughout the centuries to etch this truth into our hearts.

  

 

But if this is so, Why do we still walk out the door steeped in scarcity or armed in self-reliance? 

 

 

The truth is that we who are adopted pendulum swing from one false narrative to another…the orphan spirit to the self-reliant spirit. We forget we have a continual place at the table.

 

 

Both orphan and self-reliant function from the belief that when it comes down to it, we are alone.

 

We live out of fear either radiating on the surface. Or fear ground deep.

 

We forget who and whose they are.

 

 

When we are functioning out of the orphan spirit our primary default mode is believing that love, care, and provision are scarce. Fear grips and we put on the rags of the matchstick girl wandering the streets of people pleasing, perfectionism, and performance hoping for a coin, a kind look, a handout, a crust.

 

But here’s the truth: all this time a seat has been set at the King’s table. And something wonderful has been ladled into our bowl…like beef stew mmm I love beef stew…or coconut curry. It’s already there. It’s piping hot. And it’s always enough. 

 

Warm bread. Wine poured. Full provision. 

 

There’s a full feast for every meal whether we’re there or not. Whether we sink into the chair in front of our nameplate or wander outside looking for a handout.

 

Because most of our lives, instead of receiving from our Abba, we’re wandering the alleyways with a tin cup outside the kingdom walls.

 

We orphans are scavenging for love.

 

Ask me how I know.

 

But our orphan spirit becomes healed as we begin to live our lives more and more from our seat at the table, Practicing His Presence and abiding in His love.  

 

Early on as Francis MacNutt was teaching about prayer, he taught people to picture a full Thanksgiving table. Turkey. Green bean casserole. Yams. Mashed potatoes. The works. Family seated all around. Our Father sitting at the head.

 

And as we pray, Francis said, he invited us to picture ourselves asking our Abba for the mashed potatoes.  And don’t worry, Francis said, our Father, he always loves to pass the mashed potatoes.”

 

The orphan is healed as she begins to practice the Presence of God, lives more and more from her place at the table, knowing wherever she goes that she is sealed as a child and marked as Christ’s own forever.

 

 

 

On the other side of fear comes the self-reliant man, stuffing anxiety and choosing to leave the table to build our own kingdom, our own worth. We decide we’re going to conquer on our own behalf. But at the heart of the self-reliant spirit are the same lies, “I am alone. It’s all up to me.  I must attain for myself.” We put on masks of performance and people pleasing and put on a show. Or pretend we really can make it on our own and cut ourselves off from community.

 

The self-reliant spirit practices practical atheism. We may open our palms for the bread on Sunday morning at the altar, but on Monday morning we’re strapping on armor and going out to build our own ego trying on multiple identities and masks, as a chaotic effort to secure our worth.

 

 

Loving others freely or allowing their own true self to be known is nearly impossible for the self-reliant spirit. It’s hard to embrace another person while wearing clunky armor. It’s impossible to have a real relationship with a mask.

 

 

This self-reliant spirit is consumed with self-protection, self-promotion, self-definition, and self-provision. They dart and grasp at worth like the hungry grasp for crusts of bread but they too rarely find their way to the table. Instead they try to manage their world through control in order to get the slightest grip on peace.

 

They go out and hunt for their identity instead of sitting still before the Father while he makes the sign of the cross on their foreheads speaking the truth: you are marked as Christ’s own forever.

 

Ask me how I know. 

 

When we search for worth and identity outside the walls of the unshakeable kingdom, we live anxious, from one personal earthquake to another.

 

 

As I shared my desire to Practice the Presence of God with my bishop Jim Hobby, he shared this story with me. Bruce Newell, an Admiral in the Navy was assigned and followed around by an aide de camp, a personal assistant of sorts. But as Bruce sensed he was being invited to practice the Presence of God, something shifted in his orientation towards God. He began seeing himself as God’s aide de camp, listening, and receiving his orders. This week, Intrigued, I went on a little quest to learn about the work of a modern aide de camp and found these 11 tips for succeeding as an aide de camp in the website, The Military leader.

 

This was number 6, the author advised the new aide de camp to Adjust your perspective. Quote: “As a Major, you may have been responsible for a battalion or 300 or brigade of 4,000. As aide-de-camp, your area of responsibility shrinks to one person. No one else matters. He or she is the sole purpose of your duty. All your focus, energy, time, and resources are there to support the principal in all endeavors.”

 

Adjust your perspective.

 

When we become comfortable in our true self, we no longer seek to build our own kingdom but receive the relief of our smallness. We settle into the truth of our belovedness.

 

And as the self-reliant man practices the Presence of God, we give up self-will and bows to the will of the Father and worship becomes a lifestyle. Armor is slowly eliminated in growing trust and as we begin to accept the true self.

 

 

This beautiful work of Practicing the Presence of God heals both the orphan and the self-reliant spirit, inviting them both to draw near, to come to the table as a beloved child, to live from their identity that they are marked as Christ’s own forever.

 

 

 

Join me above in episode 17  “You have a Place at the Table” at marker 17:32 for this prayerful section. 

 

David wrote, “You set a table before me in the Presence of my enemy. My cup overflows.”

 

Ironically, what can keep us away from the table is a deep sense of our own neediness. We see our neediness as an enemy to be fought instead of an offering to be brought near the Father. 

 

Somewhere along the way you may have been told that your neediness was not welcome. Clean yourself up. Turn off your pain. Cake more makeup over any hint of brokenness.

 

This, my Friends, is not the voice of our patient Father.

 

One of the most important steps in our spiritual lives is translating our present reality to prayer.  As we become aware of our deep need and allowing ourselves to be welcomed as beloved children no matter what condition we are coming in.

 

Jesus made invitations to the needy:

 

Come all you who are weary. Come thirsty. 

 

And then David takes us by the hand by teaching us to come to God in every state of our soul. while depressed, while consumed with anxious thoughts, while lonely, discouraged, and while we’re so angry we’re begging for God to break the teeth of our enemies.

David did not sift and sort his emotions. He brought every emotion into the Presence of God.

 

What is the true state of your soul today. Am I celebrating? Am I grieving? Am I sad? Tired? Peaceful? Lonely?

 

Then ask God to give you a picture of your soul. Would You give me a picture of the state of my soul?  

 

See Jesus with you asking you to come near: “What is it that you want from me today?”

 

Allow the deep cry of your soul to come out. What is your deepest need? Hold it out before Jesus.

 

 

 

Photo by NordWood themes on Unsplash 

Photo by herprettybravesoul on Unsplash

The rest are family pictures from a few years back.