The House Was Happy And Broken

You stopped in the doorway on Thursday.

Not for any reason. You were carrying something through and there was noise coming out of the kitchen and you stopped for about a second and looked in.

And there were four people in there, and two conversations going at once, and somebody laughing at something that was not funny, and a pot doing something on the stove.

And there was also a cupboard door propped with a book, and the tape on the window, and the machine that has not worked since June standing in the corner with things stacked on top of it.

And what arrived in that second was not a comparison of those two lists. It was one thing, whole, and the thing was: this is good.

And then, within about another second, something arrived after it and said: you cannot think that. Because thinking that means you have accepted it, and accepting it means it never gets fixed.

You are a man who saw something true in his own kitchen and not a man talking himself into contentment, and a house that is happy while it is broken has never once been a house pretending.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places

There is a line in the psalms about what a person has been given, and it is said about a portion rather than about an achievement.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. (Psalm 16:6, King James Version)

The lines are fallen unto me.

Lines are measuring cords. They are what surveyors use to mark out a piece of land, and the picture is of a plot being allocated, with boundaries, by somebody else, to this person.

And the lines fell. Fell, which is the language of a lot being cast, of something arriving rather than being chosen or earned.

You are looking at a portion that fell to you rather than a result you produced, and a plot marked out by somebody else has never once been a thing the person standing in it had to justify. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who stopped in a doorway on a Thursday, and Psalm 16:6 uses the language of an allocation.

And in pleasant places is a judgment about the plot, made by the man standing in it.

He is not describing an unblemished estate. He is looking at what he has actually been given, boundaries and all, and saying: this is pleasant. It is his own assessment of his own portion, out loud, and nobody corrects him.

You are allowed to make your own assessment of your own portion out loud, and a man who says this is good about what he has has never once been a man who stopped wanting anything else. The written word records the assessment approvingly, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes an honest judgment about a kitchen possible.

And then: I have a goodly heritage.

Goodly, not perfect. And heritage again, which is the word for something received. He is not saying the land has no rocks in it. He is saying that what he received is good, which is a statement about the whole rather than a claim about every part.

You are able to say the whole is good without saying every part of it is, and a household with a taped window has never once been a household that could not be called good. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man mean the whole when he says it, and Psalm 16:6 says goodly rather than flawless.

Saying it does not stop the fixing

Something practical, and it is about the fear that arrived in the second second.

The fear says: if you say this is good, you will stop pushing, and the things that are broken will stay broken forever, and the saying of it is what will have done that.

That is a real fear and it deserves an honest answer rather than a reassuring one.

And the honest answer is that those two things are not connected. A man can say a house is good on a Thursday and still ring somebody about the machine on Friday, and the saying does not touch the ringing.

You are able to say a true thing without it becoming a decision, and a sentence said at a dinner table has never once canceled a phone call on the following morning. The written word records a man calling his portion pleasant while the boundaries stay exactly where they are, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a statement from becoming a surrender.

And here is the other half, which is worth having.

The unsaid version of this costs something, and the cost is not obvious. Everybody in this household has been in a house that is good and has never once heard anybody in charge of it say so.

Which means the children in that kitchen have a picture of this house that has been assembled entirely out of what does not work, because the things that do work have never been named.

You have people in that kitchen who have never heard anybody say it, and a good thing that goes unsaid in a household has never once been a good thing anybody in it could see. The Holy Spirit is the one present at a table when somebody finally names it, and Psalm 16:6 has a man saying his assessment out loud.

So say it tonight. One sentence, at dinner, and then let it sit there.