Two Men And A Cardboard Box

Half past eight on Wednesday.

Two men, a dolly, and a box with the model printed on the side of it in letters about that big.

And you have been thinking about that box since Monday.

Not about the machine, which is fine, which was chosen carefully, which does everything a household needs a machine to do. About the box, and specifically about the fact that two strangers will walk it through your hallway past the photographs and the coats, and they will be able to read the side of it.

That is the whole of the anxiety and it is worth saying out loud in plain words, because it sounds smaller when it is said than when it is carried.

A grown man is worried about being seen by two men he has never met and will never see again.

And the reason it is not actually small is that it is not about them. It is about the sentence that the box seems to be making inside your own house, in front of your own family, in your own hallway.

You are a man taking delivery of a machine and not a man being inspected, and a cardboard box in a hallway has never once been a report on the household it is going into.

Man looketh on the outward appearance

There is a moment where God corrects a prophet about how he is reading a room, and the correction is blunt.

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for man seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7, King James Version)

Man looketh on the outward appearance.

Notice who is being corrected. Samuel. A prophet, in the middle of doing his job well, who has looked at the outside of a man and drawn the obvious conclusion, and the obvious conclusion is wrong.

The verse is not mainly a warning about vanity. It is a statement that outward reading is unreliable even when the person doing it is good at their job.

You are being told that the surface reading is the unreliable one, and a conclusion drawn from the outside of something has never once been the accurate one in that passage. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man thinking about a hallway on a Monday night, and 1 Samuel 16:7 corrects a prophet for exactly that.

Now turn that around, because it works in both directions and the second direction is the one that helps here.

If outward appearance is an unreliable guide, then the reading you are imagining those two men making is also unreliable. It is not just that they might not think it. It is that a conclusion drawn from a box is the kind of conclusion the verse says is not worth anything.

You are dreading a judgment that Scripture has already called unreliable, and a verdict read off a box in a hallway has never once been the kind of verdict that stands. The written word disqualifies outward reading in the mouth of God himself, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes the authority away from an imagined opinion.

And then the last clause, which is the one to take into Wednesday morning: but the LORD looketh on the heart.

There is a reading being made in that hallway, and it is not the one by the door. It is the one that goes all the way in, that has the whole context, that knows what this month has been and what this house has been carrying and what it cost to arrange this delivery at all.

You are being read accurately by the only one whose reading counts, and a God who looks on the heart has never once needed to see the outside of a box to know a man. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a hallway on a Wednesday morning, and 1 Samuel 16:7 puts the true looking in God's hands.

What those two men are actually doing

Something practical, and it is a fact about the job that will help on Wednesday.

Those two men will deliver somewhere between fourteen and twenty machines that day. They have seen every kind of house there is, every price point, every hallway, in every condition, all week, all year.

They are thinking about the doorframe. They are thinking about whether the dolly will turn at the bottom of the stairs. They are thinking about lunch, and about the next drop, and about a man on the previous street who was rude to them.

Your box is the fourth one they have carried before nine in the morning and they could not tell you what was on the side of any of the first three.

You are not the subject of anybody's attention on Wednesday morning, and two men doing a job at half past eight have never once been conducting an assessment while they do it. The written word calls outward reading unreliable, and the Spirit of God is the one who puts a man back into the actual room rather than the imagined one.

Now the second practical thing, and it is about what to do with your own body while they are there.

Hold the door. The whole time. Stand where they can see you, not in the kitchen with the kettle on, and not upstairs, and not busy with something in another room.

Because the hiding is what would make it into what you are afraid of. A man standing in his own hallway holding his own door is a man taking delivery. A man who has arranged to be elsewhere is a man who is ashamed, and the only person who will ever know that is you.

You are able to stand in your own hallway on Wednesday morning, and a man holding his own front door has never once been a man apologizing for what came through it. The Holy Spirit is the one standing in the hall with you while the dolly comes in, and 1 Samuel 16:7 sets the outward reading aside entirely.

And then say thanks at the end. Just thanks. Not thanks, sorry about the stairs. Not thanks, it is only a cheap one. One word, and then shut the door, and then put the kettle on.