The Answer That Comes On Friday

It arrives on Friday. She knows that because they told her it would, in an email that was extremely polite and gave her the date and nothing else.

Six days.

And she has done everything.

She has done the thing where you say it out loud in the present tense every morning, which she got from a video and which she has now done nine days running because she started before the email even came.

She has done the version where you write it on a card and put it where you will see it. It is on the mirror. She sees it while she is brushing her teeth and she has started avoiding her own eyes.

She has done the one where you thank God for it in advance, and the one where you must not say the negative version out loud in case you cancel it, which means she has been carefully policing her own sentences in front of her flatmate for over a week.

And this evening she was standing on the balcony with a plate on her knees and she thought a sentence that stopped her, which was:

If Friday goes badly, I am going to think it was because of me.

Not because of the decision. Not because of the people making it.

Because she did not run it properly.

And she does not actually believe that, and she cannot get it out of her head, and both of those are true at once.

And you know that exactly, because you have been given a routine and then found yourself frightened of the routine.

He is not a system, and He is not a harder system

Let us settle what governs this whole page. Nothing on it is being asked of you, there is no appeal at the bottom of it, and there are no steps in it anywhere.

You are looking at an invitation, and the One being tested inside it is God. Follow the verb in the famous sentence and it lands on Him. He is under examination. He offered to be found out. It is written, put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 3:10), and the Holy Spirit is what turns a famous sentence into an invitation addressed to you.

Here it is, in its own room:

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.Malachi 3:10

Said to a nation, in one decade, about one building, where the store room had emptied and the families who worked there had gone home hungry. It is a sentence about people eating, and the remarkable thing about it, once you have seen it, is how much it sounds like a parent talking: come and find out whether I am who you have decided I am. It is the Holy Spirit who does the carrying here, which is what separates a word being spoken over you from a phrase being repeated at you.

Now the machinery, because it deserves to be taken seriously rather than mocked.

A system is not evil. A system is safe. That is the whole appeal of it. If a thing works by operation then it is predictable, and if it is predictable then it is in your hands, and if you get it right nothing can go wrong that is not your fault.

And that last part is the price, and it is enormous, and it is the sentence that stopped you on the balcony.

You are dealing with a Father, and a Father is not predictable in that way, He is trustworthy, which is a different thing entirely. Jesus put the two side by side out of ordinary family life: which of you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a serpent, or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion (Luke 11:11). And then: if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. There are no steps in that. Nobody in it is running anything. There is a child asking and a Father who is not the sort of person who hands over a scorpion. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes that off a page and gets it onto a balcony with a plate on your knees.

Now the card on the mirror.

You do not have to get the wording right, and He was never listening for the phrasing. It is written that your Father knows what you need before you ask Him (Matthew 6:8), and Jesus said that specifically to people who had been taught that repetition and correct form improved the odds. And it is written that the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26), which is a description of a day when you cannot manage the sentence at all, and the answer is not that you should try harder. The answer is that somebody else in the room is doing the speaking. His Spirit is what makes that a relief rather than a fact.

And the policing of your own sentences in front of your flatmate.

Nothing you say out loud can cancel the kindness of God, and He has never once run on the rules you have been given for Him. It is written that if we are faithless He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). If saying the wrong thing out loud could undo Him, that sentence would not be in the Bible. The Spirit is the one who makes that a floor under a nine-day streak rather than a doctrine you can recite.

Now where the trust actually goes, because this is not an article about a feeling.

Trust is not a technique and it has no steps, so nobody here is going to give you any. What it has is somebody to hand it to. You name one real thing, out loud, and hand it over, and go and eat your dinner.

Not money. Nothing on this site will ever ask you for that or route anything anywhere, including here. One real thing: Friday. The email. The version of your life that is on the other side of it.

You are owed nothing for trusting Him, and that is exactly what makes it trust and not a transaction. It is written that we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father (Romans 8:15). Nobody says Abba to a system. And notice that Paul says the Spirit produces that cry rather than telling you to work it up.

One last thing, and it matters.

If you find this hard, you are not doing it wrong. Trusting is not a skill you are being marked on and finding it difficult is not evidence about your faith. It is evidence that you have been handed machinery by people who mostly meant well, and machinery is heavy, and you have been carrying it for nine days.