Nobody To Check It With

There is nobody to turn to in the doorway.

That is the specific thing, and it is worth getting exactly right, because people who have a second adult in the house think this is about advice and it is not about advice.

Advice can be got. There is a brother, there is the man at work, there is the internet at eleven at night. Opinions are not scarce.

What is not available is the other thing. The half second at the kitchen door where two people look at each other and one of them says, what do you think, and it is not even a real question, it is a way of two people standing in the same problem at the same time.

That is what is missing, and there is no substitute for it, and calling somebody does not produce it because a person on the phone is not in the room.

So every decision in this house arrives at one person and is decided by one person and is carried by one person afterward, and when it goes well nobody notices and when it goes badly there is nobody to have decided it with you.

You are a man deciding alone and not a man who is on his own, and a house with one adult in it has never once been a house where a decision went unwitnessed.

Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee

There is a promise in Isaiah about guidance, and the position it describes is the thing worth noticing.

And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. (Isaiah 30:21, King James Version)

A word behind thee.

Not a word from far off. Not a message delivered. Behind, which is the distance a person stands at when they are walking with you rather than watching you, and it is close enough that speaking does not require raising a voice.

You are being walked behind rather than supervised from a distance, and a man deciding at a kitchen table has never once been deciding with nobody in the room. The Holy Spirit is the one who is that near while a decision gets made, and Isaiah 30:21 puts the voice at walking distance rather than at broadcasting distance.

And notice when it speaks.

When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. It speaks at the turns. Not continuously, not as a running commentary, but at the moments where the road divides and a person has to pick.

That is exactly the kitchen doorway moment. The verse locates the company at precisely the point where the company has been missing.

You have someone present at the turns and not only at the destination, and a moment of choosing has never once been a moment the voice in that verse stays silent through. The written word puts the speaking at the fork in the road, and the Spirit of God is the one who is behind a man at the exact second a decision divides.

And there is a third thing in that verse, and it is the one that answers the doorway.

This is the way, walk ye in it. That is not deliberation. It is not a weighing of options offered for consideration. It is somebody standing in the same problem, saying a plain thing, at the moment it is needed.

Which is the thing that was actually missing. Not the information. The company at the moment of choosing.

You are receiving the very thing the doorway used to provide, and a plain word spoken at a turning has never once been less than a second person standing beside you. The Holy Spirit is the one supplying it in a house with one adult in it, and Isaiah 30:21 offers presence at the fork rather than analysis beforehand.

What a second person actually does

Something practical, because there is a piece of engineering in this that can be rebuilt.

Think about what happens in that doorway exchange. One person says the thing out loud. The other person hears it. And the saying out loud is doing most of the work, because a decision spoken into a room is a different object from a decision held in a head.

The second person is the reason it gets said. That is their main function in the moment. Not the answer. The occasion for the saying.

You have been missing an occasion rather than an opinion, and a decision that never got said out loud has never once been a decision that had its full shape. The written word describes a voice speaking at a turning, which is language happening out loud at the moment of choice, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when a man speaks in an empty kitchen.

So the rebuild is this, and it is odd and it works.

Say it out loud in the empty room. Before the phone call, before telling anybody, before it goes anywhere else.

Stand in the kitchen and say: I am going to have it repaired. Or: we are getting a new one. In a normal voice, at normal volume, as though somebody were at the counter.

It will feel ridiculous the first time. Do it anyway, because the ridiculousness is entirely about there being no second body, and the function was never in the body. It was in the saying.

You are able to hear your own decision out loud tonight, and a sentence spoken in an empty kitchen has never once been a smaller sentence than one spoken to a witness. The Holy Spirit is the one in the room when a man says it, and Isaiah 30:21 has the word spoken at the turn rather than held in silence.

And here is what usually happens, and it is the reason this is not a trick. A decision that sounds right in the head sometimes sounds obviously wrong out loud. That is real information and it is only available by speaking.