Seated at the Table

Late yesterday evening, I sat on my porch swing, praying in the Spirit and asking for a revelation about a prophetic dream someone had given me. As I prayed, I felt this profound sadness. I wept. Tears flowed not for me, but for the Church. For my home church and for the church that meets in America.

My heart truly aches because of the division within our churches and our country.

Many prophesied that 2020 would be the year of prophetic vision, the year the church would “see clearly”. I believe that prophecy is proving true.

A world pandemic “showed us” how politically divided we are as a nation. I can pretty much tell you how you voted in the last election based on how vocal you are about wearing a mask. People are sick and dying, and somehow the Church’s primary discussion centered around economics, individual rights, and microchips. The pandemic allowed us to see clearly how politically divided we are as a country.

The murder of George Floyd was not a catalyst for racial division within our country. It was an unveiling of it. A murder at the hands of a police officer, “showed us” how racially divided we are as a church and as a nation. People in this country have faced injustices since its inception and somehow our discussions have centered around methodologies, Marxism, and traditions. The murder allowed us to see clearly the racial divide within our country and church.

Now, I don’t believe God would “open our eyes” to the division without also “opening our eyes” to the solution. He has been speaking to my heart through prophetic dreams and visions. I’m sure he has been speaking to others as well.

I want to share a few things I feel God is calling me to do and I invite you to pray about and see what God puts on your heart.

1. Humble ourselves. Lay down our political ideologies, our denominational ideologies and allow God (not the news, not your favorite politician) to shape our ideologies. Be willing to listen, to learn, to grow.

2. Cross the aisle. Be willing to hear others point of view, their experiences. Have conversations. Colossians 3:12 TPT says, “be merciful as you endeavor to understand others.” To understand one another, we must have difficult conversations.

3. Rally around our commonalities. If we would lay down our right to be right and have conversations that seek to understand rather than defend, we will see we have more in common than divides us. Allow those commonalities to unite us.

4. Love. The TPT version of Colossians 3 says love flows through mercy, compassion, kindness, gentleness, humility, forgiveness, and being unoffendable. Love will unify us. It is the mark of a mature believer.

5. Disagreement doesn’t make us enemies. Value, honor, and respect those with whom you disagree. It is not Democrat vs. Republican. It is not Policeman vs. BLM. God loves us all. He is not taking a side. He works in the lives of both. Let us stop seeing each other as foes but as friends with a different method.

Friends, God has given us every spiritual blessing needed to fix this problem. He will not come down and sprinkle Love dust on is to make us get along. He shed his blood for that purpose 2000 years ago. And maybe God is doing to us, what my parents did when I couldn’t get along with my siblings. Maybe God has put us in time out until we learn to get along.

Part of the dream I was discerning was a picture of me sitting alone at a table. That is how I feel because I refuse to pick a side. I feel isolated. But I am extending an invitation to join me at the table? At my table, we will humble ourselves, have conversations with people we might disagree with, celebrate our diversity, and demonstrate love for one another. We may not vote the same at my table, we definitely won’t look the same but we will love, honor, and respect each other.

Come sit at my table. Rumor has it, there is about to be a feast.

“You are always and dearly loved by God! So robe yourself with virtues of God, since you have been divinely chosen to be holy. Be merciful as you endeavor to understand others, and be compassionate, showing kindness toward all. Be gentle and humble, unoffendable in your patience with others. Tolerate the weaknesses of those in the family of faith, forgiving one another in the same way you have been graciously forgiven by Jesus Christ. If you find fault with someone, release this same gift of forgiveness to them. For love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭3:12-14‬ ‭TPT