answer. What part are you going to play in building the kind of kingdom
Jesus said would outlast us all?
We have a lodge up in Canada. It’s a tradition we’ve had for decades that
everyone who comes to visit us climbs under the dining room table to
sign it and leave a word behind. One of my friends, Don, left the word
With on the bottom of the table. We’ve had leaders and ambassadors and
ministers of foreign affairs and elementary school kids sign under our
table and leave a word. We’ve had good guys and bad guys and undecided
do the same. We’ve had rockers and poets and Supreme Court justices
and moviemakers climb under the table. We’ve had people whose
countries were rolling tanks against each other climb under together with
pens and leave their words. One of the many reasons Don has been so
influential in my life is that he taught me the importance of being “with”
each other.
I don’t know what God would put on His table if He had one. I don’t
think He’d want to have it read like a poem or look like a painting. I think
He would just want it to say “With.” He wouldn’t need a twenty-dollar
phrase or a thirty-word Bible verse. He demonstrated the word with is
much bigger and worthier and more accessible than any ten Bible verses.
It also doesn’t rhyme with anything, which is a plus. It doesn’t sound like
a big theological statement, because it’s not. It’s a huge theological
statement. It’s God’s purpose for us. It’s the reason Jesus came. It’s the
whole Bible in a word. People who are becoming love are with those who
are hurting and help them get home. I’ve always thought that people who
didn’t want to be with people here are going to hate heaven. Truly, it will
be everybody, always there.