Adaeze got to the hall at ten past six because she wanted to be early enough to work out where to stand.
That is a specific skill and if you have it you know exactly what it is. You arrive before a room fills so that you can find the wall, the pillar, the end of a row, the place where you can be present without being placed.
She had been invited three weeks earlier. Properly invited, by a woman she likes, to a thing for about sixty people.
She had said yes and then spent three weeks preparing for the version of the evening where she is an extra. Where the numbers were done for sixty and she is sixty-one. Where somebody has to fetch a chair and everybody is lovely about it and she spends the whole evening being the one they fetched a chair for.
She has been sixty-one at a lot of things. It is not always true and it is always what she gets ready for.
She came through the doors at ten past six and the room was laid.
Round tables. Cloths. And on every place, a small folded card with a name on it in somebody's actual handwriting.
She walked the room. She could not help it. She went round looking for hers and telling herself it might not be there, and it was on table four, between a man called Emeka and somebody she did not know, in blue ink, spelled right.
Spelled right. She stood there holding a card with her own name on it spelled correctly by somebody who had had to look it up.
She sat down and did not move for a while and the room filled up around her.
She said afterwards that the thing that got her was the tense of it. Not that they were pleased she came, which she would have believed at about thirty percent. The card was written on Tuesday. Somebody had sat down on a Tuesday with a list and a pen and had decided in advance where she was going to sit.
You may arrive places the same way. Early, to find the wall. Prepared to be the extra. Ready to be gracious about the fetched chair. And somewhere behind that is a settled expectation that you are an addition to arrangements rather than part of them. And nobody has told you what the tense of the word prepared actually means.
The Table Was Laid Before Anybody Arrived
There is a line in the most quoted psalm in the world that is usually read for its drama and is worth reading for its grammar.
"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."Psalm 23:5
Thou preparest.
That is the verb, and the verb is the whole thing. Preparing is what happens before. Nobody prepares a table while the guests are eating at it. A prepared table is a decision that was made on a Tuesday, in advance, about a particular person who was not in the room at the time.
You were being planned for while you were still working out where to stand. Psalm 23 uses a preparation verb and never once uses an accommodation verb, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes that and puts it into a hall at ten past six with the cloths already on.
And notice the last clause, because it goes past adequate on purpose. My cup runs over. That is not a description of enough. It is a description of somebody pouring past the point where the amount would have been sufficient, which is what people do when they are glad about who is coming.
You have been prepared for and then over-poured, and neither of those is the vocabulary of squeezing somebody in. That is what the written word says about the table, and it is the Spirit of God who makes a verb tense land in a woman holding a card with her name spelled right.
Nothing Is Being Asked Of You At This Table
Now say it flat, because this is the strictest category on this site and a page about a laid place that ends in a request would be a betrayal of it.
Nothing here asks you for anything. No figure, no proportion, no percentage, no practice, no sign-up sheet, no membership, no next step, and nothing routed to any person, cause, church or work anywhere at all, this one included.
And if things are very tight for you at the moment, nothing here is aimed at you sideways. There is no small amount hinted at, no suggestion of time instead of money, and no observation about what people in your situation often find they can do.
You are not the illustration in this article. You are the person the card was written for.
You have not been squeezed in anywhere. It is written that He has prepared for them a city, which is the same preparation verb doing the same work on a much larger scale, and His Spirit is the one who has been in every room you have ever entered early in order to find the wall.
And you are fully welcome tonight with nothing in your hands at all, because a prepared place does not consult the guest about their contribution, and the Holy Spirit is the one keeping this page from putting a card at the door.
Something can sit down here, in whatever room this has found you in, and it costs you nothing at all.
You are not an extra at this table. Scripture uses the language of preparation and then of overflow, and the Holy Spirit is the one making that read as a card with your name on it rather than as a familiar psalm.
Two things this is not. It is not the opening of a scheme and there is no request behind it. And it is not a comment on your circumstances, because a place laid on a Tuesday is not a reward for anything the guest did between Tuesday and the evening.
You have a place, and it was laid before you came through the door. That is written, and His Spirit was in the hall before ten past six.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, sitting down in a good chair. The standing to speak to God like this is yours in Christ and was decided in advance rather than earned at the door, Scripture is the ground under it, and the Holy Spirit was in the room before you arrived. What He does next in your circumstances is His to decide, and none of these lines is a lever.
- Back of the room where I always put myself, you were never where my place was laid. The word of God says Thou preparest a table before me, and preparing is a thing that happens on a Tuesday, in advance, about a particular person. I am sitting at the place with my name on it.
- Habit of getting early to a room so I can find the wall, get out of this hall, because nobody has ever had to fetch a chair for me here. In the name of Jesus I put you down by the doors, since what is written says my cup runs over, which is a description of somebody pouring past enough. His Spirit has been in every room I ever entered early.
- Father, You had the cloths on and the cards written before I came through those doors at ten past six. Your word says Thou anointest my head with oil, and Your Spirit is the one who got somebody to look up how my name is spelled. You prepared a table, and I am glad to say so out loud.
Psalm 23:5
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