He has been meaning to get back to it properly for about two years.
Not in a vague way. He has a fairly clear picture of what getting back to it looks like: up earlier, the reading restarted, the thing he does not talk about dealt with, and a general sense of being in decent order. He is not asking to be a saint. He is asking to be roughly the man he was at forty.
And then he will pray properly, and things will open up again.
In the meantime he prays over the meal and over the grandchildren and at the turning to the cemetery, because those are automatic and do not require a man to be in any particular condition.
Here is what he has never said out loud, to his wife or his brother or anybody.
He does not believe God is angry with him. That is not it, and if you suggested it he would say no straight away.
He believes God is waiting for him to be presentable. Which is not the same as anger and is somehow harder to shift, because it does not feel like a spiritual problem at all. It feels like manners. You do not go and ask a favor of somebody important while you are in that state. You get yourself sorted first and then you go.
Two years of getting sorted first, and the sorting has not started.
The most careless three words in Genesis
There is a scene in Genesis with a woman and a boy in a desert, and it contains a phrase that ought to be more famous than it is.
She has put the child under a shrub because she cannot watch him die, and gone and sat down about a bowshot away, and lifted up her voice and wept. Nobody in that scene is in good order. Nobody is praying properly.
And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.Genesis 21:17
Where he is.
Not where he ought to be. Not once his mother has composed herself, and not after anybody has been restored to any kind of standing. Where he is, which at that moment is under a bush in a desert, in the worst condition of his short life, having done nothing at all to improve his position.
You are heard exactly where you are, and the condition you are in has never once been the entry requirement. That is what the word actually says, not a mercy I am extending to you, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes that plain to a man who has been getting ready for two years.
Presentable is a rule from another world
Now the plain thing, hermano, because I know exactly where that rule came from.
It came from being raised properly.
You do not turn up at somebody's house in a state. You do not ask a favor of a man you respect while you're in disorder. You clean yourself up, you go in good order, and you show respect by arriving as your better self. That is not a bad instinct. It is most of what your father taught you and it has served you in every room you've ever walked into.
And it does not apply here, and the reason it does not is not that God has lower standards. It is that He is not a man you are visiting. The verse in Genesis is not describing courtesy. It is describing a Father who heard a boy who could not even speak for himself.
And nothing about your condition has delayed His hearing by one hour. Scripture puts the hearing in the desert before anybody has improved anything, and the Holy Spirit is not waiting in a corridor for a man to get himself sorted.
Ask it exactly as you are
Here is the practical thing, and the whole weight is in one word.
Ask the old thing, out loud, today, exactly as you stand.
Not after the earlier mornings start. Not once the reading has been going a fortnight, and not once the thing you do not talk about has been dealt with, because those may all be good and none of them is a gate.
Exactly as you stand. This afternoon. In the yard, in the state you're actually in.
You are able to come exactly as you stand, and coming like that is not disrespect. Scripture says God heard a boy where he is, and the Holy Spirit is the One who takes a rule of manners off a man who learned it from a good father.
And this message will not tell you why the last two years have been quiet, or what happens next. Neither is mine to say. What is mine to say is that the waiting room you have been sitting in was built by you, and He has never once been on the other side of its door.
So here is the turn, and it is this afternoon, in whatever state you're actually in.
Come exactly as you stand.
Not because the getting sorted was a bad idea, and by all means start earlier tomorrow if you want to. Come as you are because two years have gone into a waiting room that has no attendant, and the man on the other side of that door has been standing in the yard the whole time.
You are heard where you are and not where you intend to be, and that has been true through both of those years. Scripture says God heard the voice of the lad where he is, and the Holy Spirit is carrying that to a man who has been getting presentable since the spring before last.
Now the honest half. Nothing here promises the two years get explained, or that the thing you have been asking about moves. However He answers, the outcome is His and not ours to sell, and two quiet years are never evidence against you. What is settled is the phrase in that verse, and it is three words long and it says where he is.
Two years of getting ready. Go out to the yard and ask Him now.
Declare this over yourself
Say them out loud in the yard. The standing to speak them is yours because you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the authority is not your own: it is His, delegated and carried in His Name, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes the word live in an ordinary man's mouth. However He answers, and whatever the next two years hold, the outcome is His, and the condition you are in is never evidence against you.
- Condition I set for myself before praying, you are a waiting room I built and He was never in it. Scripture says God heard the voice of the lad where he is, under a bush, in a desert, with nothing improved. Stay as good manners in another man's house, and get out of my yard.
- Rule that says a man gets himself sorted before he asks a favor, get out in the name of Jesus. You are the best thing my father taught me and you do not apply to a Father, and God has never once been a man I am visiting. Two years in a corridor with no attendant is enough.
- Lord, I am asking You the old thing today, out loud, in the state I am actually in and with nothing tidied first. You promised to hear where a person is, and the Holy Spirit is carrying that to a man who has been getting presentable since the spring before last. I am not waiting until I am the man I was at forty.
Genesis 21:17
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