Our Family Table

My favorite piece of furniture in our home is our dinner table.

To most people, it’s just a table. But to me, it tells a story.

My appreciation for this table began back in 2018. We needed a new dining room table, and while we had a vision for what we wanted, everything we found was well beyond our budget. So we decided to build it ourselves.

That’s exactly what we did.

I drew the plans, bought the lumber, and began building it in our garage. I still remember spending hours out there with worship music playing as I cut, sanded, and assembled each piece. Some days I’d even roll the table out into the driveway to continue working on it.

Long before it ever sat in our dining room, God was already using it.

Once the table was assembled, before it was stained or finished, I would make a cup of coffee each morning, sit at that unfinished table in the garage, read God’s Word, and pray. During one of those mornings, I burned Isaiah 26:8 into the underside of one corner of the table:

“Yes, LORD, walking in the way of Your laws, we wait for You; Your name and Your renown are the desire of our hearts.”  Isaiah 26:8

As I carved those words into the wood, I prayed they would also be carved into our family’s hearts.

My desire was simple: that whenever our family gathered around this table, our attention would be fixed on God and on one another. I prayed it would be a place filled with meaningful conversations, forgiveness, grace, laughter, prayer, and fellowship.

After many hours of sanding and staining, we finally brought the table inside our home.

Since then, I’ve continued meeting God there every morning. It’s where I read His Word, pray, and lift up my wife and children before Him. Often, the Lord impresses a particular verse on my heart, and I’ll write it underneath the table.

Today, if you crawled underneath it, you’d find Scripture written across the underside.

Every time our family gathers around that table, we’re quite literally sitting over God’s Word.

Some mornings, I’ll even crawl underneath the table and pray through those verses. One of my favorite moments is realizing that a verse written years ago is directly beneath the seat where one of my children usually sits and somehow it’s exactly the truth they need during that season of life.

That’s not a coincidence.

That’s the faithfulness of God.

To anyone else, our table probably looks ordinary. But when I sit there, I don’t just see wood and chairs. I see a place where our family gathers. Where we break bread. Where prayers are lifted. Where forgiveness is offered. Where faith is strengthened. Where memories are made.

It’s much more than a table.

In Deuteronomy 6, God commands His people to love Him with all their heart, soul, and strength. He tells them to keep His words in their hearts, teach them diligently to their children, and talk about them “when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Then He gives this instruction:

“You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:9

God wanted His Word woven into the everyday rhythms of life, always visible, always remembered.

We chose a different place.

Instead of writing Scripture on our doorposts, we wrote it underneath our kitchen table.

Why?

Because some of the most important discipleship happens around a table.

Meals are shared.

Questions are asked.

Stories are told.

Forgiveness is extended.

Prayers are offered.

Faith is passed from one generation to the next.

We wanted every one of those moments to rest, both literally and spiritually, on the foundation of God’s Word.

Faith isn’t just taught on Sunday.

It’s built around the table.