I Cooked For Them And Could Not Sit Down

You were up at six.

Everything from scratch, most of it started the day before, and by the time people arrived the kitchen looked like something being run rather than something being used.

And it was good. It is always good. That is not in question and it has not been in question for about fifteen years.

And you did not sit down.

Not once. Not for four minutes. You stood at the counter, you carried things, you went back for more of everything, you ate about a third of a plate standing up at eleven, and then you cleared for an hour after everybody had gone.

And somebody said, as somebody always says, sit down, and you laughed and said you were fine, and you were fine, and you did not sit down.

There is an account in John of somebody who cooked for people on a beach, and what he does next is the part nobody notices.

A fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread

Here it is.

As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. (John 21:9, King James Version)

The food was already made.

They had been out all night and they came in and it was done. Somebody had made a fire, and cooked on it, and set bread beside it, and none of that had been asked for by anybody.

That is exactly what you do. It is your language and it is a good one and it has fed a great many people.

You have been speaking a language that is written into that account, and John 21:9 records the fire and the fish and the bread as an act of love rather than as a duty. The Holy Spirit is the one who put that detail in the last chapter, and He put it there without one word of explanation.

Now what happens next, which is the half of it you have never done.

He says: come and dine. And then, a few lines later, He is there with them, and there is a conversation, and the conversation with Peter is one of the most important in the whole book.

The cooking was not the event. The cooking made the event possible and then He was in it.

You have been stopping halfway through the pattern, and it is written that He said come and dine and then talked with them rather than that He served and withdrew. The Spirit of God is the one who set both halves down in the same chapter, and the second half is where everything actually happened.

And notice that nobody there was waited on.

He did not stand over them refilling anything. They came, and ate, and He was among them, and the meal turned into the thing it was for.

You are being shown a man who cooked and then joined, and Scripture puts the dining together rather than putting one person on their feet. The Holy Spirit is the one who recorded it that way, and He recorded no serving at all after the invitation.

Why standing is safer

Now let me say what standing actually does, because it is not modesty and it is not habit.

Standing keeps you in a role.

While there is a job, there is a reason to be in the room and a thing to do with your hands and an answer to what you are contributing. Sitting down removes all of it at once. Sitting down means being there as yourself, with nothing in your hands and nothing to point at.

You have been holding onto a role because the role is easier than the presence, and it is written that He said come and dine rather than that He kept working. The Spirit of God is the one who names what a man is protecting himself from, and He names it without any contempt in it.

And here is what it costs the people who came.

They came to be with you. Every one of them, and they have said so, in the sit down that gets laughed off every year.

And what they get is the food, which is excellent, and about four minutes of you at various points, which is not what any of them came for.

You have been giving them the smaller half of what you have, and the written word has the whole meal turn into a conversation rather than into a service. The Holy Spirit is the one who knows what a room actually came for, and every room you have ever fed came for you.

And one more thing, said plainly because it is worth being direct.

Nobody is going to keep asking. People ask a man to sit down for about five years and then they stop asking and take it as how he is.

You are running out of a window that stays open for a while, and it is written that the invitation was come and dine rather than come and be served. The Spirit of God is the one who gets a man to notice a window before it closes, and this one has been open a long time.

Sit down at your own table

So here is what to do, and it is twenty minutes rather than an evening.

Sit down. At your own table. For twenty minutes, with nothing in your hands, in the middle of the meal rather than at the end of it.

Not when it is all done. In the middle, while things could still be needed, because that is the part your body has been refusing.

You are able to sit while it is still going, and John 21:9 has the food ready and the cook among them rather than beside the fire. The Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man into a chair in his own kitchen, and it is a harder thing than it sounds by some distance.

And put your hands somewhere.

That is a practical instruction and it matters. Hands that are not doing anything will find something within about ninety seconds. Put them around a cup, or flat on the table, and leave them there.

You have hands that need occupying and a cup will do it, and it is written that they came and dined rather than that anybody kept moving. The Spirit of God is the one who holds a man in a chair for twenty minutes, and twenty minutes is the whole of the assignment.

And expect somebody to notice.

Somebody will say something. It will be warm and it will be slightly amazed and it may be a joke. Let it happen and do not get up because of it.

That reaction is the measure of how long this has been going on, and it is worth sitting through.

You are able to stay seated through the remark, and His word has the meal become a conversation rather than a service. The Holy Spirit is the one who is at that table already, and He has been waiting on the chair rather than on the food.