Who’s at Your Table?
JUSTIN CAMP
6 min read ⭑
Let’s start at the beginning. The very beginning. In the first chapter of Genesis, God sings his creation into existence. Many verses of the ancient song repeat, but one jumps out: “And God saw that it was good.”
The astonishing gift of light itself? “And God saw that it was good.” The majesty of mountain ranges, meadows, rivers, beaches, seas? “And God saw that it was good.”
The abundance of trees, plants and fruit? “And God saw that it was good.” The unfathomableness of the sun and moon, the stars and planets? “And God saw that it was good.” The creation of birds and fish, whales and dolphins, lions and tigers, bears and gorillas, deer and elk? “And God saw that it was good.”
But then God did something crazy. He created something higher than any mountain peak, more beautiful than any white-sand beach. He created something he could love way more than he ever could a rhinoceros. Or even a golden retriever. He created something he could love with his whole heart. He created someone he could love. Outrageously. He created human beings — his beloved. He created you and me.
And for the first time, the key of his creation song changed. A crescendo rose. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Very good. Nothing in the universe, not one of the wondrous creations that came before, compares to the splendor of you. Or of me. Or of all the people in our cities and companies and corners of the world.
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Collectively and individually, we are the pinnacle of God’s creation and the fast focus of his furious love. And because of his intense feelings, God can’t help being extravagantly generous. He loves giving his sons and daughters gifts. Even in hardship, he blesses us with his love and care and rescue.
But here’s the thing: among the very best gifts God ever gives us are of his sons and daughters to one another.
Let that sink in. The people in your life — your family, friends, colleagues, even your casual acquaintances — are among the best gifts God has given you. And Scripture is clear about how we’re to treat every one of them. “A new commandment I give to you, “implored Jesus, “that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34, ESV).
In his masterwork “The Screwtape Letters,” published in war-torn 1942, C. S. Lewis gives us an imagined peek into the spiritual world that is both humorous and frightful. The book is a set of fictional correspondences between a senior devil, Screwtape and a younger, more inexperienced devil, Wormwood. (Apparently, the former is somehow also the latter’s uncle.) Anyway, throughout the book, Screwtape offers malevolent advice regarding a “patient,” a Brit Wormwood is tasked with luring away from God.
Near the end of the sixth letter, Screwtape advises his nephew:
(NOTE: The nature of these dialogues means everything is backward and upside-down. The “Enemy” of which they speak is God. And “our Father” is our enemy, yours and mine.)
Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary. There is no good at all in inflaming his hatred of Germans if, at the same time, a pernicious habit of charity is growing up between him and his mother, his employer, and the man he meets on the train. Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, his intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will. It is only in so far as they reach the will and are there embodied in habits that the virtues are really fatal to us. (I don’t, of course, mean what the patient mistakes for his will, the conscious fume and fret of resolutions and clenched teeth, but the real center, what the Enemy calls the Heart.) All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from our Father’s house: indeed they may make him more amusing when he gets there,
Your affectionate uncle
Screwtape
Screwtape describes people as being or having three concentric circles:
The Will or the Heart: where the rubber meets the road, our actions, our habits.
The Intellect: where we consider ideas, perhaps acting upon them, perhaps not.
The Fantasy: where we ponder things that will (or can) never result in our actions.
He advises Wormwood to influence the Patient such that all kindness and goodwill are pushed to the outer circles where they will remain largely imaginary — e.g., thinking good thoughts; being pro-this, anti-that; supporting a far-off people group or political cause — rather than in the inner circle, where actual loving action will result.
Of course, the wise and crafty author hoped that we would turn 180 degrees and foil Wormwood’s plans — and those of any other evil instigator. Lewis penned this particular chapter so that we might be convicted and spurred to keep our kindness and goodwill in the primary circle, where they will do us and others some good. He wants us to use the love in our hearts to love our neighbors. To consider the needs of a spouse or a friend or a mother-in-law — and act in love. To notice the needs of a peer or client at work or a next-door neighbor — and act in love. With the Holy Spirit in our hearts, to consider how we might care for a barista, a cashier, an Uber driver, a flight attendant, a customer service rep or a garbage collector — and act in love.
“He tells us what kind of actions bring him (and us) the most joy. And they have nothing to do with hours logged in pews or how many times we read through the Gospels. What regulates his joy — and ours — is how we treat the people around us.”
Remember, the people in our lives — our family, friends, colleagues, even our casual acquaintances — are among the most precious gifts God will ever give us. And such lavish gift-giving necessitates a reciprocal response. Therefore, in our interactions with the “people gifts” in our everyday lives, our love should be palpable and dynamic. Thinking nice thoughts will not do. We mustn’t read Scripture and then never live it. No, we must resolve to do things with our mouths and muscles, not just our minds.
God loves us with fierceness and tenderness. The scope of his love is shocking. It burns bright and hot and true. We couldn’t ever plot it on a graph, of course — because no one could draw a y-axis that high or an x-axis that long; no page, no screen could contain it. But if we could plot his love, the line would be high and flat. It would never fluctuate. Not in response to our actions, our best or even our worst. Not even a little.
But he does tell us what actions he most prefers. He tells us what kind of actions bring him (and us) the most joy. And they have nothing to do with hours logged in pews or how many times we read through the Gospels. What regulates his joy — and ours — is how we treat the people around us.
“Jesus talked to his friends a lot about how we should identify ourselves. He said it wouldn’t be what we said we believed or all the good we hoped to do someday. Nope, he said we would identify ourselves simply by how we loved people. It’s tempting to think there is more to it, but there’s not. —Bob Goff
So, will you notice the people that come into close proximity to you this week — say, two or three meters? And then, will you imagine a large table with seats for each of them? And will you do what you’d do with anyone sitting at a table in your home? Will you learn their names? Will you treat them with care and listen to what they say? With the Holy Spirit in your heart, will you try to discern what they need most — connection, belonging, kindness, mercy, understanding, encouragement? And will you consider how you might be a small part of meeting those needs?
Justin Camp is the editor-in-chief of Rapt Interviews. He also created the WiRE for Men devotional and wrote the WiRE Series for Men. His writing has also been featured and seen on Charisma, Moody Radio, Focus on the Family, GOD TV, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, Belief.net, LifeWay Men and other media outlets.
