December 31, 2023

Psalm 23: 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies . . . (NIV)

This is the condition of God’s servant – always conflict, but always a spread table.*

I was thinking and praying about what to write in my final post for the year. Thinking: something about the clean slate of a new year and the clean slate of each new day. Praying: nothing. Thinking: something personal. Praying: God reminded me that there is something of me in every day’s installment. 

And so, I had my idea antenna up for weeks, praying that I wouldn’t miss the signal when it came. And suddenly, there it was - in a Sunday morning sermon. The preacher used this verse from the 23^rd Psalm, and – sorry, Jim – I have no idea in what context. But I knew it was the verse I had been waiting for.

So there I sat with a few hundred other believers, invited there by our Lord to participate in a meal which he has prepared for us. He asks that we remember him as we consume the emblems that represent his body and his blood. Inside our comfortable church building we are safe among our friends. Outside, though, we are surrounded by our enemies.

It seems that Satan has ramped up his attacks on God’s people and it scares me. The world hates us more every day. Well, didn’t Jesus tell us that would happen? Not to make it sound like it’s no big deal, but he also said to keep in mind that the world hated him first (John 15: 18). And still, he set the table, prepared the meal, and invited us to join him . . . in the presence of our enemies. As a witness to them and a reminder for us.

As often as you gather around the table of the Lord, savor the peace of the place and the moment. As you move forward and outward from that place and time, you take the Lord’s peace and protection with you. Into the enemy’s camp. 

It is God’s presence, not his protection, that gets us through life.*