I Do Not Like Standing In There

You take the plate out.

Not consciously. It took a while to notice and it took your wife saying something in passing, about a month ago, about how nobody eats in the kitchen anymore.

And she was not making a point. She said it the way people say things about the weather.

And since then you have been watching yourself, and what you do is this: you go in, you do the thing, and you come out. Kettle, plate, cupboard, out. You have not stood still in that room in about eight months.

And the reason is not the state of it exactly. Plenty of rooms in this house need work.

It is that standing in there produces a feeling, and the feeling arrives within about four seconds, and it is the specific hot feeling that a person gets about something that is their own fault and visible to other people.

You are a man who has been avoiding a room and not a man who should be ashamed of one, and a kitchen that needs work has never once been a reason for a man to leave his own room quickly.

They looked unto him, and were lightened

There is a line in the psalms about shame and about faces, and the order of the words in it is the whole of the medicine.

They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. (Psalm 34:5, King James Version)

They looked unto him, and were lightened.

The looking comes first. Before anything changed, before the situation improved, before the room got sorted. They looked, and the lightening happened as a result of the looking rather than as a result of any repair.

That is the order in the verse and it is the opposite of the order most people are waiting for.

You are able to look before anything has been fixed, and a face lifted in an unfinished room has never once had to wait for the room. Psalm 34:5 puts the looking first and the lightening second, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who goes in and out of his own kitchen quickly.

And the word lightened is a good word here.

It means made light. Lifted. The weight comes off, which is a physical description of something that happens in a body rather than a change of opinion or a decision to feel differently.

You are being offered something that happens in the body rather than a change of mind, and a weight lifted off a man has never once required him to talk himself into anything. The written word describes a lightening rather than a persuasion, and the Spirit of God is the one who does the lifting in an ordinary kitchen.

And then: their faces were not ashamed.

Not their situations were improved. Their faces. Which is exactly where shame lives and exactly what it does, because shame is the thing that makes a person look away and move quickly and not stand still.

You are being spoken to about your face rather than about your kitchen, and a man who has been looking away has never once been a man whose room was the problem. Psalm 34:5 addresses the face directly, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lifts a head in a room that has not changed.

What the avoiding is doing

Something practical, and it is about the cost of eight months of quick trips.

The room is not getting worse because of it. That is not the cost.

The cost is that the kitchen has stopped being a room in this house. It has become a corridor with a kettle in it, and the household has quietly reorganized around a man who does not stand still in there, and nobody has said a word about it.

And the meals moved, and the standing about moved, and the conversations that used to happen at that counter moved to the doorway, and everybody adjusted without anybody deciding anything.

You have moved a household without meaning to, and eight months of quick trips have never once left a room where they found it. The written word puts the change in the face rather than in the surroundings, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows a man what a habit has actually done.

Now the practical instruction, and it is deliberately physical rather than emotional.

Stand in there tonight. Eat your dinner in there, sitting down, at the table, in the room.

Not to prove anything and not as a statement, and definitely not with an announcement about it, which would make it a subject.

Just sit down in there and eat, and stay past the point where the four seconds happen, because the four seconds happen and then they pass, and the whole discovery is on the far side of them.

You are able to stay in a room past the moment that usually moves you out of it, and four seconds waited out has never once been four seconds that lasted longer than that. Psalm 34:5 puts the lightening after the looking rather than after the repair, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the kitchen while you sit there.

And take somebody in with you if that is easier. A person at the table changes a room faster than anything else does, and there is nothing weak about using that.

You have people in this house who would sit down in there with you, and a second chair pulled out at a table has never once been a man admitting he could not manage a room. Psalm 34:5 lifts the face rather than the room, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the kitchen with both of you.