It Is Not Mine To Fix

You have asked four times.

Politely, each time. The first one was a phone call. The second was a message with a photograph attached. The third was a message repeating the second. The fourth was a phone call that was not answered and not returned.

And nothing has happened, and it has been nine weeks, and there is a particular kind of tiredness that comes from having no power over a thing that is entirely about your own life.

Because you cannot fix it. Not technically. You are not permitted to. It is somebody else's property and somebody else's decision and the arrangement puts the whole of it outside your hands.

And that is the thing that is actually wearing, and it is not the cold. It is the arrangement.

You are a man living in a house he cannot change and not a man without any power at all, and a thing that belongs to somebody else has never once taken the whole of a home with it.

My expectation is from him

There is a short line in the psalms that does something precise with a person's waiting.

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. (Psalm 62:5, King James Version)

My expectation is from him.

Notice what it does. It does not end the waiting and it does not say the waiting was wrong. It relocates where the expectation is pointed.

The man in that psalm is surrounded by people who are not going to come through for him. The chapter is full of them. And rather than telling him to stop expecting things, it moves the expectation somewhere it will not be worn down.

You are able to move where your expectation is pointed without giving up on anything, and a man waiting on somebody who does not answer has never once been asked to stop hoping. Psalm 62:5 relocates rather than cancels, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody who has made four calls and had nothing back.

And notice that he is talking to himself.

My soul, wait thou. He is giving himself an instruction, which means it is not his automatic setting and he knows it. He has had to take himself in hand and point himself somewhere.

You are able to take yourself in hand and point yourself somewhere, and a man instructing his own soul has never once been a man who had run out of moves. The written word has him addressing himself directly, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes an instruction to yourself something that actually holds.

And the word only is doing work.

Wait thou only upon God. Not because the other people do not matter and not because the request should be dropped. Because the waiting, the load bearing kind, the kind that costs something every day it goes unanswered, is only safe in one place.

You are permitted to keep asking while resting your weight somewhere else, and a request made four times has never once required a man to put his whole expectation on the answer. Psalm 62:5 puts the only on the waiting rather than on the asking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the weight off a phone that does not ring.

What is actually in your hands

Something practical, and it is about sorting the whole house into two lists.

One list is things that belong to somebody else. The heating. The window. The thing in the bathroom. Those are genuinely outside your control and no amount of effort changes that, and the list is shorter than it feels.

The other list is everything else in that building, and it is much longer than it feels, and almost nothing on it has been touched in nine weeks because the whole house has been filed under his.

You have a list of things in this house that are entirely yours, and a building that belongs to somebody else has never once meant that nothing inside it does. The written word puts the expectation somewhere it can rest and leaves the man free in everything else, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates two lists in a cold living room.

Now the practical instruction, and it is about one room.

Make one room warm tonight. Not the whole house, which is not available. One room, and warm in every sense of the word.

A lamp instead of the overhead light. The blanket that is somewhere in a cupboard. Something on that smells of food. The chair moved so it faces the other way. Whatever makes a room feel like a place somebody chose.

And do not ask anybody. That is the point of this particular action. It is entirely inside your authority and it requires nobody's permission and nobody can decline it.

You are able to do something tonight that requires nobody's permission, and one warm room made on purpose has never once needed a landlord's agreement to happen. Psalm 62:5 leaves a man free everywhere his expectation is not stuck, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the room while a lamp goes on.

And keep asking about the heating, which is a separate thing and is not being dropped. Write the fifth message on Monday. But the fifth message is a task rather than a hope, and the difference between those two is the whole of this article.