What Happens When You Give Up a Table?

I didn’t plan any of this. And oftentimes the coolest things happen without a plan.

Becca (my wife) and I were staying at her mom’s place in Melbourne, Florida during our road trip south. I’d been working from different coffee shops in the area and found a good one called Lucky Goat Coffee in Rockledge. Good coffee. Good energy. It felt like the kind of place where people settle in and spend time with themselves or others.

One morning I grabbed a seat at a six-top table. Just me, my laptop, and a cup of coffee. A few minutes later, a group of young people walked in together. Four or five of them. They were waiting to order, and it was pretty clear they were going to need a table.

So, I got up and asked, “Hey, are you all together?”

“Yeah, yeah,” one of them said.

“Are you going to be staying here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, why don’t you put your stuff down on this table so you can claim it? I’ll move.”

That was it. That was the whole thing. I gave up a table.

They were so grateful you’d think I’d bought them all lunch. One of the guys came over and introduced himself. His name was Mason. He asked what I do. I told him I’m from Maine, we’re traveling, and I do some writing around love and fear. He thought that was interesting. I mentioned we were on our way to Costa Rica. We chatted for a minute and then I moved over to a chair nearby.

A few minutes later, Mason walked up. “Hey, can I get you a drink?”

I said no, I was good. Plenty of coffee. But I appreciated it.

I ended up shifting to a table where I could see their group. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. I was just writing and observing. I could see a Bible on the table. Every once in a while, someone would bow their head. It looked like a Bible study.

These were young people. Late twenties, early thirties I would estimate. And they were going deep.

When I got up to leave, they all acknowledged me. Said thanks again. Mason got up, shook my hand.

I asked, “Do you mind me asking, were you having a Bible study?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You want to join?”

I laughed. “I actually took part in my first one a few days ago while visiting friends in South Carolina.”

I explained that I grew up in New England where church attendance is pretty quiet. And the state I live in, Maine, is considered one of the least religious.

But as I’d been driving south, I’d been noticing something. Faith was showing up differently. More visibly. More in community. At a diner in Georgia, I’d seen a men’s group meeting around a flyer that said, “Iron Sharpens Iron.” At coffee shops, Bible study groups. It wasn’t just about going to church. The community was extending beyond those walls into everyday spaces.

Then I asked Mason something I’ve gotten comfortable asking strangers on this adventure. “Would you be willing to get coffee with me this week while I’m in town?”

He said yes. We set it up for the next morning at Lucky Goat. 10 AM. I told him to feel free to invite others.

Three Men, Three Stories

The next morning, Mason showed up with two others. Eric and Shakey. Shakey, I would learn, is the pastor of a church the three of them are planting together called Lost and Found Florida.

I asked if I could record the conversation. They said yes. We sat down. And for almost three hours, we talked about God, Jesus, faith, the devil, self-preservation, pride, disconnection, love, and choice.

We did not agree on everything. And that was completely okay.

What struck me first was how naturally these three men went deep. There was no warmup. No small talk about sports or weather. Shakey opened with a prayer. And then we were in it.

I want to be honest about where I was walking into this conversation. I consider myself deeply spiritual but not very religious. I grew up going to a Congregationalist church and probably stopped going consistently around age eight. Given the choice between basketball and church, I was choosing basketball every time. After 9/11, I started questioning organized religion more seriously. I couldn’t reconcile how three faiths that worship essentially the same God could be in such conflict.

But I’ve also come to see how much good religion has done in orienting people toward love. And my whole perspective on this adventure is simple. Whatever helps someone find their true self and move through the world in a positive way, that’s a good thing. What works for some people doesn’t work for others. I’m here to learn, not judge.

So, I told them that. And then I listened.

Relationship, Not Religion

Early in the conversation, Mason said something that I found really interesting.

“It’s more relationship than it is religion.”

I asked him to say more. He explained that when Jesus died on the cross and the Holy Spirit was sent, something shifted. The connection between God and humanity became personal. Direct. Not mediated by systems or structures, but available through prayer. One on one. At any time.

“The highest form of spirituality through relationship is simply prayer,” Mason said. “You get to talk to God one-on-one at any point in time. And that is such a dynamic difference between religion and relationship. Because religion, just like the world, will tell you to clean up from the outside in. But the Holy Spirit will always work on you from the inside out.”

That distinction landed for me. Not because I suddenly agreed with everything behind it. But because it reframed something I’d been carrying. I’ve always associated religion with structures and systems. Churches. Rules. Hierarchy. Mason was describing something different. Something more intimate.

Eric built on it. He read from John Chapter 1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He walked me through the idea that when Christians talk about the Word of God, they’re not talking about a book. They’re talking about a person. Jesus.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” Eric said. Then he connected it to something I hadn’t thought about before. The name Emmanuel. God with us.

“This is the big deal,” Eric said. “God desires to be with man. Ever since Genesis Chapter 1. He forms him with His hands. He breathes in him. From the very jump, God desires to be with man.”

I told them about the image I grew up with. God as an old man with a long white beard up in the clouds. How I had a hard time accepting that idea.

Eric smiled. “God can’t be defined. He’s infinite. He’s other. And yet, He comes near.”

The Map and the Compass

I asked them a question I’ve been thinking about for a while. When you look at the Bible, do you see it more as a map or a compass?

I explained what I meant. A map gives you defined routes. If a bridge washes out, you’re kind of stuck. A compass is a tool that helps you navigate. It helps you orient around obstacles and find your way back.

Mason had an answer ready. “This book is the map. Your prayer time and your relationship with the Lord is the compass.”

He said the Bible contains the details. The terrain. The history. The instruction. But the relationship with God through prayer is what gets you back on track when life knocks you sideways.

Eric went further. He said the Bible is a map to the person of God. Not a map to a destination. Not a map to perfection. A map to understanding who God is. And that when you understand who God is, you can face anything.

“I’m on a soft rock,” he said. “I’m not moved.”

You Can’t Have Love Without Choice

There was a moment in the conversation when everything kind of converged.

We were talking about the Garden of Eden. I was asking about why God would even allow the possibility of evil. Why was the serpent there? Why was the tree there? If God is perfect, why create a world where things could go wrong?

Eric’s answer was simple and direct. “God values choice over everything else. The Bible says God is love. You cannot have love without choice. You cannot have true love if I can’t choose to love you. If I’m forced to love you, it ain’t love.”

I actually said it out loud. “I love what you said. You can’t have love without choice.”

And then I sat with the weight of it. Because choice is hard. It means you have to be responsible for the choice you make. And that’s what makes love hard. Because love is a choice.

That line of thinking runs right through everything I’ve been exploring on this adventure. Love isn’t a feeling you stumble into. It’s a direction you choose. And fear often shows up as the thing that keeps us from making that choice. Fear of rejection. Fear of being wrong. Fear of losing control.

These three men were describing a faith that they believed was built on choice. Not blind obedience. Not inherited tradition. Choice.

What Goes Against Your Nature

Mason said something else that stuck with me. He said the Bible is the only book that will tell you to do things completely contrary to your nature.

I asked for an example.

Eric jumped in. “Jesus said if somebody slaps you on the cheek, offer the other cheek. If somebody takes your cloak, give them your tunic. Love your enemies. Pray for those who hate you.”

I said, “So we’re born with this instinct toward self-preservation. And Jesus is saying, do the opposite.”

“It’s not about putting yourself in harm’s way,” Eric said. “It’s about denying the flesh. Picking up your cross. Following.”

He pointed to something I hadn’t fully considered. When Jesus asked his disciples to follow him, he was asking them to follow him to his own death. And they went willingly. Not at gunpoint. With love in their hearts.

“That is not natural,” Eric said. “Nobody wants to die.”

I thought about how often I choose self-preservation in small, everyday ways. Avoiding a hard conversation. Protecting my ego. Keeping distance from people who see the world differently than I do. Those aren’t life and death moments. But they’re still moments where I’m choosing fear over love.

“I Got Fed Up and Yelled at God”

Each of them shared how they came to faith. None of their stories were simple. None of them inherited it passively.

Mason grew up in a Christian household but got tired of going through the motions by the time he was fifteen. He went the way of the world, as he put it. Drugs. Drinking. DUIs before he was twenty. His parents almost sent him to military academy.

He explored other paths. Buddhism. Islam. He read the Bible but didn’t understand it.

Then one day he got fed up.

“I was yelling at God,” Mason said. “I said, I don’t even know if you’re real. But I guess I do care because I’m trying to talk to you. I want to experience you. I want to know everything about you before I try to keep figuring all this stuff out about me.”

Two weeks later, he got sober for the first time in seven years. He walked into a church for the first time since he was thirteen or fourteen. He said it wasn’t the preacher or the worship that moved him. It was a weight. The weight of something real pressing down on him in that chair.

“I felt the Holy Spirit,” he said. “I fumbled my way to that altar, crying like a baby. And I stayed there probably thirty minutes after service. Because the Lord showed up for me that day.”

“He Spoke to Me and Said, That’s What You Were Feeling”

Shakey’s story started with his grandmother. She raised him after police raided his parents’ home for drugs when he was around eight years old. She was the only representation of Jesus in his life.

He described getting filled with the Holy Spirit as a child while watching gospel singers in his grandmother’s bedroom. He could still smell the fried chicken she was cooking. He fell to his knees and stayed on the floor for an hour.

But as he got older, he said he became “too saved.” Judgmental. Nobody wanted to be around that. So, he went back to his mother’s house and started living differently. One foot in the Word, one foot in the world.

Then everything changed. He was living in Atlanta, working for a TV show, making good money. His mom called and asked him to come home to Alabama for his sister’s birthday. He packed more clothes than usual. He couldn’t explain why.

“The whole time I’m driving to Huntsville, I felt like death,” Shakey said. “Something is off. Something is about to happen.”

His brothers and cousin went out that night. His family had been robbed, and they went to retaliate. His cousin was killed. His brother went to jail. He’s still there.

“In that moment, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, that’s what you were feeling. I need you to stay here.”

Shakey described standing on top of the fireplace in his family’s living room while everyone was screaming and confused. He told them they couldn’t fight each other. They had to turn to Jesus.

“In that moment,” Shakey said, “everybody in my living room got saved.”

From there, God called him to full-time ministry. He went to school. Then he moved to Florida. Then he planted Lost and Found Florida, a church that started from what he called a divine chain of events, including a 911 butt-dial that connected their executive pastor with a couple who had a building and were praying for young people to fill it.

“You mean to tell me you’re going to bring my wife and my daughter here? To plant a church?” Shakey said, laughing. “What does it look like? We ain’t got no money for this.”

He laughed again. “He’s like, yeah, I’m going to pave the way for you.”

“I’ve Seen Jesus With My Eyes”

Eric’s story was the hardest to hear.

His father was Dominican; a drug dealer connected to the cartel in New York. He was being groomed to become a high priest in Santeria, a form of Spanish witchcraft. Eric’s roommate was a warlock. Rituals. Seances. Dark stuff.

Eric said he was born with what he called extreme sensitivity. From a young age, he could see things others couldn’t. Including Jesus. He described seeing Jesus standing in his bathroom when he was nine years old after he lied to his mother about his homework.

But he also saw demons. Spirits that came into his room at night and surrounded him, saying the same thing over and over. Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.

As a child, Eric was deeply suicidal. He hated himself. He hated everyone. He had a notebook where he planned violence. He described thoughts so dark he paused before sharing them.

“It was sick,” he said. “It was disgusting.”

He went to church. Played on the worship team. But he was living two lives. In college he started drinking and doing drugs. And then one night, after a dangerous high, God spoke to him.

“You’ve been dedicated to me. Your life is tied to me. And if you’re not going to serve me, then this is it for you.”

Eric said, “All right, Lord. I’m not going to go back and forth with the world.”

He went into full-time ministry with an organization called Circuit Riders. He traveled the country. He gave his life over.

“God was like, I’ve been real. I’ve been real. You know I’m real. And now it’s time to follow me.”

The Wrestling

There’s a story in Genesis where Jacob physically wrestles with God. Mason read it to me from Chapter 32. Jacob won’t let go until God blesses him. And God changes his name to Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God.”

But here’s the part that got me. After the wrestling, God touches Jacob’s hip and dislocates it. And then God leaves without fixing it. Jacob walks away with a limp that everyone can see.

“He didn’t fix him,” Mason said. “He claimed to have seen God. And people knew that he walked differently because of that moment.”

Mason said that’s what a relationship with God does. It changes you. Marks you. You walk differently after.

I told them I was wrestling too. I believe Jesus was one of the most incredible people to ever walk the earth. I look to him for inspiration. But I struggle with the idea of him being the Son of God. That’s just where I am.

They didn’t flinch.

Eric asked me what was holding me back. I said a few things. That history is typically written by the victors and people in power. That I have a hard time accepting there’s only one way. That I believe there are a lot of paths for people, and when someone finds one that works for them, that’s a good thing.

Mason nodded. “When it comes to this, you’re only going to get to a certain point where you have to make a commitment. The Lord didn’t call us to understand Him first. He called us to follow Him first. And with following comes understanding.”

I respected that. And I was honest. “I’m still going very broad in my study. That’s just where I am.”

Nobody tried to argue me out of it.

Love People

Shakey told me one more story. He used to own a souvenir shop back in Alabama and made a t-shirt that said, “Love People.” He explained that it came from a season of his life where loving people was hard for him.

“God said, I’m gonna show you.”

Shakey is Black. His wife is white. Her father was openly racist. He didn’t want a Black son-in-law. Didn’t want a Black grandchild. Would leave their church campus just to avoid seeing them in the hallway.

I asked the obvious question. “How is this man a Christian and he’s racist?”

Shakey smiled. “That’s the question I had too.”

But he didn’t fight it. He said, “That’s God’s son. And God wants him more than I want him.” He trusted that God would get to the man in His own time.

A few weeks before our conversation, Shakey said, the man was delivered from racism. Over FaceTime, of all things. Fully. And now he sees Shakey’s family in a completely different light.

“Guess how I did it?” Shakey said. “I didn’t fight the man. I said that’s God’s son.”

Divine Intervention

Near the end of our three hours, Mason asked if I wanted to place my faith in Jesus right then. He was gentle about it. No pressure. But direct.

I said, “Can I hold on that offer until maybe the next time I see you guys?”

He said, “Absolutely.”

I told them it wasn’t a light decision. I was in an exploratory space. Becca wasn’t feeling well and I wanted to get back to her. And a plow truck had taken out a rock wall at our house back in Maine, so I had some practical things to deal with too. Spiritual reasons, relational reasons, and practical reasons.

They laughed. No offense taken.

Before I left, I shared the coffee cup story I’ve been carrying with me on this trip. If you’re carrying a cup of coffee in a crowded room and someone bumps into you, why did you spill coffee? Most people say because someone bumped into them. But really, you spilled coffee because you were carrying coffee. If you’d been carrying water, you would have spilled water.

What you carry is what you spill.

I told them that’s how I move through the world. I’m always asking, how do I spill more love?

Eric said something back that I think about now. He said that everything good he carries, he didn’t come up with. He’s imitating Jesus. The kindness, the love, the patience. None of it is his. He’s just imitating the person he follows.

“If you’ve seen anything good from us,” he said, “it’s because we’re imitating Him.”

What I’m Sitting With

If you had asked me the Sunday before this conversation what I’d be doing on the following Tuesday, I certainly wouldn’t have said sitting in a coffee shop in Rockledge, Florida, talking about God, the devil, and self-preservation with three men I’d never met.

But that’s what happened. Because I gave up a table.

I want to be careful here. I’m not saying that giving up a table is some heroic act. It isn’t. It’s a basic act of decency. But here’s what I keep coming back to.

It was a choice. A small one. It took about ten seconds. And it opened a door to one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve had on this entire adventure.

Mason, Shakey, and Eric are not men I would normally cross paths with. I suspect they’re in their late twenties and early thirties. They’re planting a church in central Florida. They’ve lived through addiction, violence, loss, racism, and spiritual warfare I can barely comprehend. Their belief system is different from mine in real, specific ways.

And none of that mattered at the table.

What mattered is that I was curious. They were open. And we chose to be present with each other for almost three hours. Four men, different backgrounds, different beliefs, different everything. Having a conversation that actually went somewhere.

I think about disconnection a lot. It’s one of the themes I keep returning to on this adventure. We’re so divided. So sorted into our camps. And a lot of that is by design. People in power benefit when the rest of us are separated.

But here’s the thing I keep learning. Connection is available to us almost anytime. It’s usually just one small choice away. A question. A gesture. A willingness to stay a little longer.

I said something during our conversation that surprised me. I told them I’d call our meeting divine intervention. Before that morning, I would have called it random. But after sitting with Mason, Shakey, and Eric, I’m not so sure anything about it was random.

I don’t know what label to put on that. And I don’t think I need to.

I do know this. I walked into Lucky Goat Coffee as a stranger. I walked out with three new friends, a head full of beautiful thoughts, and the clear sense that something happened in that room that was bigger than any of us.

That’s what happens when you give up the table.