While eating a spaghetti dinner with her team in Honduras, Danielle Rogg of 2015 M Squad discovered one of the most beautiful invitations of the kingdom.
I breathe in the fresh garlic-y scent and catch a hint of tomato in the air. It’s spaghetti night and our stomachs are telling us that we might need to go back for seconds. We lower ourselves into the seats around the dining room table – which is one of those indestructible plastic tables that folds in half, but to us it’s the most beautiful table we’ve ever seen. It’s the first time this year my team has a table that we all fit around, where we can sit, talk, laugh, munch, and share our highs and lows from the day.
Tonight, spaghetti night, as we sit down at the table, we hear a knock on the door. Eleuth, one of our new Honduran friends, answers it. I look around the table and note that everyone else’s salivary glands appear to be working just as hard as mine. A thought breezes through my mind, “Aren’t you going to invite him to the table?“
But we already prayed. So we heap spaghetti onto our plates and smother it in meat sauce.
We sit and talk and laugh and munch and share our highs and lows from the day. When we’re done, Eleuth is still sitting in the living room talking to our guest, Samuel. We tell her there’s enough food for her bowl of spaghetti and sheepishly apologize that there is not enough food for Samuel. Eleuth replies,”Don’t worry, we can share it!”
I felt like somebody jab-crossed me, hitting me simultaneously in the cheekbone and the ribs. This deep conviction comes over me: “How could you not invite them to the table? It is not your table, it is Mine. There is always room at My table.”
There is always room at the table. Who are we to decide who is worthy of extra meat sauce?
I brought this conviction before the Lord and pleaded with Him for forgiveness. We made a kind of deal. “Lord, whenever I have the opportunity, I will invite people to the table. It’s your table, not mine.” I shared this conviction with my team and they agreed to buy into the invitation as well.
We want to be people who invite others to the table. Always.
So that was that. Simple and settled. The next night, we sat down to dinner having made a fourth box of Mac n’ Cheese because we were extra hungry. As soon as we sat down at the table, there was a knock at the door. We all kind of laugh-grimaced at each other and somewhat reluctantly offered up our food to the guests that came to the door.
“Is there enough?” They asked from the other room. “YES!” I’m glad they couldn’t see our faces, because they might have communicated otherwise. We were persistent in offering our food to the sweet family we came over.
We ate our fill and had seconds. They ate too. And there was enough.
There is always room at the table.
There must be a reason the Psalmist says, “You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.” In the middle of the valley of the shadow of death, in the times where we are full of fear, we feel threatened and attacked and insecure, God invites us to the table. Instead of taking away all of those horrible circumstances, He says, “Come and dine with me.”
I am thankful for tamalitos and the half-day process of preparing them. Everything from chopping down the banana leaves from the tree outside to rolling each ball of masa, to carefully wrapping each pocket of goodness into its banana leaf shell. Because at dusk we sat down to consume the beautifully made tamales, and Samuel knocked on the door.
“Please, come to the table.”
Do you want to spend the a year sharing and inviting others to the abundant life of following Christ? If so, click here.
