Right Here?

The kitchen table. There is no place quite like it. And just so you know- that picture up there is my actual kitchen table – the one with the syrup rings,  the dirty napkins and the waffle crumbs. It looks cleaner in black and white, just FYI. This is the place where real life happens at my house. Right here. This is where it all goes down. Where milk is spilled, laughter is loud, tears are sometimes louder, crazy stories are told, bills are paid, arguments are had and hard lessons are learned.

To be honest, I googled “kitchen table images” in hopes of finding a nice one to go with this post – and there were some awesome images. But I felt a little weird inviting you in and then faking you out with a pretend kitchen table. So, here you go; the real thing. You’re welcome.

You see, here’s what I am starting to learn. This ordinary kitchen table right here. This is where Jesus longs to be present. For real. And not just at my kitchen table, but at yours too. And in your car, and at the bus stop and in the gym and at the park. These real places that spin in ordinary ways right before our eyes and seem mundane, trivial,  even endless. Jesus wants to walk right into them. And while I truly long to figure out how to be aware of this, the ugly truth is this; sometimes, I’d really rather that he didn’t.

 It worries me. What God might see when he looks down on me. These ways that I claim to love Jesus and then live like it doesn’t matter. I wonder as I drive carpool, wash clothes, run meetings, discipline boys and stand in the checkout line at Kroger- does any of this matter?  Does Jesus really care about all of this and all the crazy that goes down at our kitchen table?

Can’t I just muddle through these ordinary haphazard moments and then present him with the good moments?  You know, the “church worthy moments”. Like when I finally get all three boys dressed; shirts tucked in, belts buckled and ushered through the front white doors in the shadow of the steeple. Yeah, Jesus, check this out! Here we are! That’s what I want him to see.

But what am I thinking? That the Creator of the whole universe is going to be impressed by me? That my googled images of amazing kitchen tables and my boys with their cowlicks slicked down and momentarily clean faces will earn me some extra heavenly points? Yeah, I don’t think so. 

As God keeps drawing me closer, I am learning that he doesn’t just want my perfect. He wants it all. And the perfectionist southern girl in me keeps getting turned inside out.

In the Bible, there are all the stories about God’s people, the Israelites. And I love the Israelites in these stories. I love them because I can relate to them, so well. God tells the Israelites, through their leader Moses, that they are a people “holy to the LORD your God” (Deut.7:6). The Israelites, though, are not a particularly holy people. They whine, they complain, they rebel, they refuse to listen. They are referred to as “stiff-necked” about 9,227 times (do not fact check that number) in the Old Testament. But yet, over and over again God calls them “his” or a “holy people”. And he promises to be their God and dwell among them. As if their holiness had nothing to do with them and everything to do with God.

In fact, in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, God goes a step further when he provides these visions for this prophet, Ezekiel about the building of a temple. This whole book is somewhat confusing as the prophet records what God unveils to him. But there are these verses that jump off the page at me, and I can’t stop reading. God says this to Ezekiel, “He said: Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet… and I will dwell among them forever.” (Ezekiel 43:7-9). Now in this passage, God is speaking about the temple. But “this place” –  this temple – was going to be among the Israelites, a people who really didn’t have it all together; a people who had done nothing to deserve the holiness of God among them. Ezekiel receives this vision while God’s people are being held in captivity by another nation because of their refusal to listen to God. Nonetheless, God promises to put the “soles of his feet” on the ground among them, anyway. It takes my breath away.

 Because he did it. The soles of God’s feet did walk among us  as Jesus. And the soles of Jesus’ feet didn’t just stay in the temple. No. The soles of God’s feet walked up a lonely hill to the cross because God had a plan. A plan that would allow “the soles of his feet” to walk right into the crevices of our hearts. We are called “the temple of the living God”. Places where the soles of God’s feet walk. Ordinary places for holy feet. But what does that look like in real life?

Do I believe that he dwells here – right here – in us? That he walks among us. That he sits right here at my scratched up kitchen table, stands at my sink full of dirty pots, positions himself in the bleachers of my kids basketball games and puts the soles of his feet right into my ordinary mess. Do I believe it or do I miss it?

This is the truth he keeps whispering into my days: It is holy, all of it, not because of anything you do, but because of me, my presence, right here. 

Is it hard to see him in the blur of your day? It is for me. I constantly need this reminder: the only thing that can help us find the holy in the ordinary is the presence of Jesus.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.” (Revelation 3:20).

We have to open the door. The real door, the one that leads into our real lives. The one that when it opens might reveal the untucked, burping at the table, leaping off the couch kids; the frazzled, burning the chicken again mom; and the still answering work emails dad. Yeah, “the soles of the feet” of the living God want to walk right into that kind of ordinary and dwell there. It is his presence that changes us. We are not called we are “temples of the living God”  because we are good at doing this life.

The holy ground isn’t ours to make. It’s his. And so are we.

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you… to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)