When there are only so many chairs at the table.

Competition is built into the very fabric of my being. It takes a lot of prayer to breathe in His grace and exhale my own inner competition.

He is working in me, and I am learning to desire higher things than petty comparisons and trivial successes.

But there is still a part of me that sees everyone as a competitor and every opportunity as a chance to win.

Instead of seeing a friend’s success, I see a missed opportunity. Instead of seeing God working in others, I see my own failures.

I don’t see something profound and beautiful and God-glorifying, I see one less open place for me.

But our God is a God of abundance and there is always room for more.

He is the creator of a million colors, the complex human mind, and two hundred kinds of puppies. (Seriously, that’s the real number.)

He carved sweeping canyons with His words and filled world-covering oceans.

He took a bunch of lost and lonely humans and made them a people. And then He spoke to them.

And just when you thought they had turned from Him too many times, He became Emmanuel. Every time you thought He was fed up with His forgetful and selfish people, He gave more grace upon more grace. More and more and more.

He could have sent His Son to die and told us – “just wait on Earth, you’ll be reconciled to me eventually.”

But the veil was torn, and a weary world was given more than it deserved. More and more and more than it deserved. Over and over again.

He gave out this extravagant gift of hope and eternal life, but He also healed the sick and raised the dead right where they were.

He didn’t come to get the job done and wipe His hands of His silly, fickle people. He came to love all over the place, to teach us truths that enliven our souls this side of Heaven, to keep giving us more than we deserve.

I read the Gospels and its just one act of crazy radical grace after another. He heals the centurion’s servant and then he turns around and raises the mother’s son from the dead.

He teaches and teaches and creates disciples to keep on teaching.

Every time you think He’s done, there’s more.

Our God is a God of abundance.

He prepares a place for us and there is always more room at the table.

Someone taking a seat doesn’t mean there are any less chairs.

But this side of Heaven, sometimes there actually are only so many chairs. Sometimes there are literally only a few chairs at tiny Starbucks tables, and sometimes there are only so many promotions and publishing deals and spots in the show. We live in this world of harsh limits and awkward spaces where I always feel like I’m taking up too much room or talking too loudly. But even on this side of Heaven, He is abundance and there is always more room. It won’t always look the way I imagined and it might hurt more than I thought, but there is always room and He is always giving more grace.

So I’m learning that I only have this one job.

My job is obedience.

My job is to die to myself, and sometimes that means risking my own success to lift up my brother or sister.

My job is to do what He asks, even if it looks like I’ll fail and even if everyone else thinks I’m crazy and even if I have to help someone else “win.”

My job is to do the thing that I do, to do the thing that He keeps asking me to do and the thing He keeps providing the strength and inspiration for.

You also have one job, and it’s the same one I have, but there is no competition. I can’t do your job and you can’t do mine.

You have one job – obedience. Do the thing that you do, the thing that He keeps asking you to do and the thing that He keeps providing the strength and inspiration for.

Every beautiful created thing, every God-glorifying work of art and labor of love is waiting to be done, waiting to be created.

Your job is not to manufacture the results of that creation; your job is to say “yes.” Say “yes” to that thing He is asking you to do. He gives grace upon grace, and your only response can be “yes” upon “yes.”