Monday, July 2nd,
'18
All
rights reserved © message by Kris Jackson
TABLE
TALK
"...your
children like olive plants, all around your table" (Psalm 128:3)
What's dinner like at your house, complaints,
discipline issues, having fried preacher for lunch, or just plain silence?
Picture the happy family in our text all seated around the table. Joining together at
least once every day as a family is still the healthiest thing we can do. Add
prayer and some scripture and it makes the meal even tastier. Today's families
know little of table talk. When Dad's at the motel, Mom's at the mall, and
Junior and Sissy are at the movies, the family doesn't stand a chance. The
family that prays together stays together, true, but a good starting place
would be to get rid of the TV trays and move dinner back into the dining room.
"Round about" shows each family member manning his post. It is the church in
miniature, a microcosm of the Kingdom of God.
First note the words "your children". The Bible
never speaks of "your child", only "your children". WE is stronger than ME.
Though J.J. is our only child common sense says that singleness is not the
healthiest environment. Next notice, the children are like olive "plants". A
plant is not a full-grown tree. It is still formative, shapeable and needing
support. Planted, assumes children are being grounded in the word of God. It
takes a taproot to tap deep fountains. Plants are tender, not tough like oaks
with coarse bark. They are works in process. Israel is as the olive tree (Hosea
14:6), but Israel's children are only plants, slips, saplings. Cultivation and
special care are essential. The temperature has to stay stable. In other words,
they do need, at least to a degree, a sheltered life.
Third, note the metaphor of "olive" plants.
Olive plants grow up to be olive trees which produce olive oil. Parent, you are
shaping the next generation anointing. The picture is of anointed believers
being groomed at the tables of loving godly parents. The church's future is
under your care. Sapling is soon to take the age-worn tree's place. Table talk
is fertilizer for the plant, kind of a daily dose of Miracle Grow. If
you want your kids to grow up as miracles then you need to practice miracle
living before them...at the table.
A fourth note, these olive plants sit "all
around your table". Each child is like a student at his desk, a team player in
his position, or a soldier at his post. The cook must dish out more than casseroles
and pot roasts. If they are at your table then they are eating out of your
hand. What are you feeding the olive plants? Testimonies of what God has done
for you and morsels of truth that will prepare them for life, I hope. Notice,
the children aren't bouncing off the walls, they are seated "all around your
table". That pictures order in the family, a certain degree of respect. One
confused child claimed the greatest miracle Joshua ever performed was when he
made his son sit still. (Sun stand still; get it?) Finally, the "table",
throughout the Bible, is an emblem of the richness and superabundance of the
Christian life. Faith doesn't merely open a lunch sack, it spreads a lavish
dinner table. "For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the
parents for the children" (2 Corinthians 12:14 NKJV). There is no lack in the
faith-family. Table talk is sweet because all needs are provided. The children
are secure, Dad is proud, and Mama is happy (If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody
happy). And the Kingdom of God advances because of the new deposit of the
anointing oil. When the crop matures there will be a harvest of olives and the
purpose of the family will be realized. Until then keep talking...kind,
interesting, from the heart, with humor, giving direction. There is no talk as
valuable as table talk...well, maybe pillow talk. We'll look at that tomorrow.
