Motivation Monday - Take Your Seat At The Table
“We have an opportunity to build a new synergistic, diverse table that is equitable to all in the church across our nation. It requires leadership, sacrifice, compassion and God’s grace. It is possible now more than ever. ”
This past week I had the opportunity to equip several non-profit global leaders and women in leadership. I haven’t met a leader yet, male or female, who felt truly confident in the place they served, that they belonged.
Belonging is tenuous at the best of times.
Most everyone is undoubtedly familiar with the term “having a seat at the table.” When one is provided with a seat at the table, it represents an opportunity to be heard and to make a difference.
But there is much more behind coming to the table than simply taking a seat. We assume that if there is a table there are those that have a right to be there and those, maybe like you, who are waiting for an invitation. There is limited seating.
Depending on the table you imagine, there may be many reasons why you feel you don’t belong.
You are the wrong gender
You are the wrong race
You come from the wrong class
I have experienced various barriers in my life and in ministry. Depending on the perceptions of what people thought I could bring to the table, I was in, or I was out. I was too much, or not enough. I became all things to all people in my effort to be invited to some gathering of the inner circle at the table in my imagination. I stretched myself to over-function when I needed to prove my worth and self-silenced when my voice went unnoticed.
For many of us who have felt somehow ‘wrong’ or ‘out’, we have fought our way to inclusivity. We have smiled and been polite while inwardly waging war against the systemic inequitable matrix. Not always outside the church, but often in the heart of it.
Jesus always, always created spaces for belonging – particularly for women.
Jesus liberated each woman he met
from her prison of low self-worth and menial role in society.
Jesus saw their broken and bent frames and healed women
in a synagogue on the Sabbath or turned around in the middle of the road to look into the eyes of a hemorrhaging woman and heal her.
Jesus went out of his way to commission the first unlikely evangelist at the well in Samaria,
And maybe, he has plans for your emancipation too.
I am declaring that there is a table with a place set for you in the Kingdom of God.
He will never give the place that is rightfully yours to anyone else.
At this table the last are seated in places of honour and the first are last. I belong here. You belong here. Christ’s table has been forged in love and sacrifice.
Romans 5:1-2 is an encouragement to not only boldly take your seat at this table but dance on it!
“By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide-open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.”
We have an opportunity to build a new synergistic, diverse table that is equitable to all in the church across our nation. It requires leadership, sacrifice, compassion and God’s grace. It is possible now more than ever.
Friend, will you take your seat at the table?
I believe in you!
Cathie