Is it Monday before Christmas already? How did that sneak up on us? I had hoped to get this up yesterday, but we had a full and fun weekend with neighbors at tables in a tent with hundreds of cookies to decorate, and then a great Discovery Bible Study for kids, capped off by Christmas pizza and one of our new family traditions of watching The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I had the final post written, and here it is…
As we enter the fourth and final week of Advent, Christmas feels close enough to touch. The waiting has thinned. The candles are nearly all lit. The story we’ve been moving toward is no longer distant—it’s about to arrive.
Over the past weeks, we’ve reflected on hope that makes space in the dark, peace that moves toward reconciliation, and joy that grows through presence and community. This final week brings us to love—the kind that holds all of those themes together. Not sentimental love. Not abstract love. But love that draws near, stays present, and chooses proximity over distance.
Advent reminds us that love does not announce itself from afar. It shows up. It moves in. It takes a seat at the table.
More than twenty years ago, I was a punk twenty-something, trying to figure out what was next, and I prayed a very open-ended prayer. I wasn’t asking God to send me anywhere specific. I was simply asking what He wanted to do with my life. At the time, the world felt wide open—full of places to go, opportunities to chase, overwhelming needs everywhere, meaningful work to be done.
In the quiet of those prayers, I sensed a surprisingly narrow invitation: stay. Stay here. Give your life to this place. Play the long game. In Prague.
I felt God’s whisper to stay—but not just stay. I sensed a call to live out and embody Jeremiah 29:5–7: build, plant, multiply, do not decrease, seek the welfare of the city, and pray for her prosperity.
I had no idea then what that invitation would mean. I couldn’t have imagined the joy it would bring—meeting my wife, building a family, seeing young men and women grow, watching lives slowly change over time. And I certainly couldn’t have imagined the cost: the misunderstandings, the betrayals, the seasons where fruit felt painfully scarce.
Love, it turns out, doesn’t tell you everything up front.
Two years ago, part of that original calling was tested in a way I never expected. Much of what had been built was suddenly taken from us. Trust was broken. Stories were twisted. At times, it felt like everything we had poured ourselves into had been pulled out from under us. Leaving didn’t just feel possible—it felt reasonable. There was a moment when it even felt justified.
Around that time, an older Czech man sat across the table and listened quietly as I shared what had happened. When I finished, he looked at me and said plainly, “Zach, you have every reason to leave here. Why would you stay?”
I told him about hearing God’s still, small voice—the same voice I had heard years earlier—inviting me once again to stay. To remain. To not walk away when things became costly.
He nodded slowly and said, “Yep. That’s what I thought.”
There was no argument in his response. No surprise. Just recognition.
In that moment, I realized something important. The story of staying was already doing work I could never have accomplished with explanations or results. In a place shaped by disappointment, skepticism, and long memories, faithfulness itself had become a testimony. God was already using our story—not to prove anything, but to quietly challenge assumptions and draw people toward Himself.
Here in the Czech Republic, people are always watching what happens when things get hard. They have seen wave after wave of people arrive with big expectations, only to leave when the work proves slower, heavier, and more costly than imagined. Each departure leaves behind a little more distance, a little more caution. Staying, in that context, speaks.
To remain in that moment was not about stubbornness or blind optimism. It was about love choosing presence over self-protection. It was about allowing roots to grow deep and wide, intertwining with others so that they could withstand storms together.
Love, I’m learning, does not stay because it is rewarded.
It stays because that is what love does.
Not long ago, a supporter stepped away because they couldn’t see what they expected to see. The numbers didn’t line up with their expectations. The visible fruit didn’t fit their framework for success. And while that hurt, it clarified something important for me.
Love cannot be built on metrics.
If love depends on outcomes, it will always leave when the results disappoint. If love depends on affirmation, it will disappear the moment it is misunderstood. But the love we see in Jesus—the love revealed at Christmas—does not operate that way.
Jesus spent nearly thirty years living an ordinary, unseen life. No crowds. No reports. No visible impact by the standards we usually measure. And yet those years were not wasted. They were love embodied—woven quietly into place, people, and time.
Jeremiah 29 does not tell God’s people to leave when exile becomes uncomfortable. It tells them to build, to plant, to seek the welfare of the city, and to stay. Love, in that vision, is patient. It grows roots deep enough to intertwine with others so that the whole forest can withstand the storm.
So when someone chooses to step away because they don’t see the expected or desired “fruit,” it stings—but it also reveals something deeper. Of course, I would love to see abundant, visible fruit. Who wouldn’t? But we do not cause things to grow. God does.
Our calling, then, is not to manufacture results, but to be faithful to what Jesus has asked of us. I pray daily for this supporter—not that they would see things differently because of us, but that they would see the bigger picture in their own life and walk with Jesus. Sometimes the fruit we chase is the kind that doesn’t last.
So we will remain faithful to Jesus and to His calling.
We will stay.
We will build.
We will plant.
We will multiply.
We will pray and seek.
And we will trust Jesus to do what only He can do—bring growth.
This is why the table matters so much to us.
At the table, love does not perform. It does not rush. It does not demand resolution or clarity. It simply shows up, listens, and returns. It makes room for people as they are—tired, guarded, curious, skeptical, hungry for belonging, unsure what they believe.
Over the years, one friend has found their way to our table again and again. They’ve been with us for Thanksgiving. They’ve decorated cookies in December. They’ve watched movies in the courtyard. They’ve been present for the kind of ordinary moments that don’t look “spiritual” from the outside, but somehow carry something deeper—moments where a person can exhale because they’re not being evaluated or sold anything, they’re just… welcomed.
This week, they sent us a message. No fanfare. Just a quiet note that stopped us in our tracks. They wrote: “I just wanted to tell you that I think what you’re doing is especially important for some of the people who come. In a way, you’re helping to change lives. To be welcomed somewhere is a big thing. Maybe for some, you’re the right ‘switch in the tracks’—the turning point.”
That line—to be welcomed somewhere is a big thing—is easy to overlook until you live in a culture where people often protect themselves with distance. Where trust takes time. Where cynicism feels safer than hope. In that kind of world, a table can become more than a meal. It can become a threshold.
It made me think of Eugene Peterson’s phrasing in The Message: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14)
This is what the Church is meant to be—not a building with four walls, but a people who take on the flesh of a neighborhood. People who move in through presence. People who learn names. People who show up again. People who let love be slow, embodied, and costly.
At the table, love pulls up a chair.
It stays longer than expected—but never in a way that feels forced or awkward.
It bears inconvenience.
It gives time and attention.
It shows up again tomorrow, even when nothing feels resolved.
And this, ultimately, is the love we celebrate at Christmas: the love that moved in, the love that stayed, the love that refused to remain distant.
This is the kind of love that still has a place at the table.
This week’s practice is simple — though not easy.
Jesus, You are the love who moved in and stayed.
Teach me to love the way You love — with patience, presence, and faithfulness.
Show me where You are inviting me to remain, even when it would be easier to pull away.
Where is love inviting me to stay present — without fixing, proving, or withdrawing?
Choose one small act of proximity:
…a shared meal
…a longer conversation
…a return visit
…a refusal to disappear when things feel unresolved
Love does not require guarantees.
It only needs a place.
And this is the good news of Christmas:
the love that moved in,
the love that stayed,
is still here.
This is the kind of love that still has a place at the table.
Have you thought about supporting Harrodovi? Consider Giving
0 Comments