For the believer whose faith is easy to live and impossible to record.
It's twenty to midnight, and she's recorded the same forty seconds six times.
Her niece asked her a question at a wedding in June. Not a hostile one. The girl is twenty, she's been through something difficult, and she asked what it's actually like to believe, in the tone of somebody who genuinely wants to know rather than somebody setting a trap.
She gave a poor answer at the wedding, because there was cake and a band and somebody's toddler. She's been meaning to send a proper one ever since, and the wedding was three months ago.
So tonight she's holding her phone and recording voice notes in the kitchen. Each one starts warmly and then, about fifteen seconds in, turns into a comparison. She hears herself explaining which kind of church it is, and how it differs from the one her niece will be imagining. Then she stops, holds the button down, and deletes it.
Six attempts, all deleted. Her thumb is over the button again.
You are able to say what happened to you without locating yourself against anybody. The written Word describes what God did as a rescue and a move toward somewhere, and the Holy Spirit makes that arrival live in you rather than leaving it in a doctrine.
Why the Comparison Arrives at Fifteen Seconds
Listen to where it happens. It's always the same place.
The first fifteen seconds are fine, because she's talking about God. Then some instinct in her hears how a twenty year old might be receiving it, imagines the church her niece is picturing, and reaches for a comparison to correct the picture.
That correction is well meant. It's protective, even affectionate. She doesn't want the girl to hear this and think of something bleak, so she steers her away from it, and in steering her away she stops talking about God altogether.
You've deleted that voice note. It isn't insincerity, and it certainly isn't a lack of love. It's the reflex of somebody who's been misread so often that she begins managing the misreading before it's even happened.
A Rescue With a Destination
Here's how Paul says it to the Colossians, in a sentence about what God has actually done:
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.Colossians 1:13 (KJV)
Watch the shape of that. It has a from in it, and the from takes four words. Then the rest of the sentence is a destination, and it's the destination that gets the weight.
Delivered out of, translated into. Both halves are there and only one of them is a place you can live. He doesn't leave the reader standing in a cleared space, wondering where to go next.
You have been carried into somewhere, not merely carried out of something. The written Word gives the arrival as the heavier half of the sentence, and the Holy Spirit makes that kingdom a present address rather than a theological term.
A Rescue Story Needs a Destination or It's Just an Escape
Here's what I'd carry out of that kitchen if I could take a single thing away with me.
Think about how anybody tells a story about being pulled out of water. The interesting part is never the water. It's the boat, the blanket, the stranger who wouldn't let go of your wrist, and the tea somebody made you an hour later.
A story that's all water is an escape story, and escape stories are exhausting to hear. The listener ends up in the cold with you and never gets taken anywhere.
That's exactly what happens at fifteen seconds. Every time she reaches for the comparison she takes her niece back to the water. The girl didn't ask what it isn't like. She asked what it's like, which is a question about the boat.
You have a destination to describe, and it's the half your listener asked about. The written Word puts the weight on the kingdom rather than the darkness, and the Holy Spirit is the one making that place real enough to describe.
Nothing Here Is a Criticism of Where You Were Formed
Let me be plain, because there's a version of this message that would hurt you and I won't write it.
The people who taught you to steer around misunderstandings weren't being small. They'd usually watched somebody turn away over a wrong picture, and the correcting habit is grief about that rather than contempt for anyone.
I'm not asking you to think less of them or to go back and put anybody right. You can keep every careful clarification you were handed and still send one voice note that mentions nobody at all.
You can keep every clarification and still describe the boat. Scripture gives the arrival without belittling anyone who learned to describe the water, and the Holy Spirit adds rather than demolishes.
The Fifteen Seconds You Can Keep Going Past
Here's the turn, and it's smaller than a decision and steadier than a mood.
The six deletions were never a shortage of faith in you. They were the instinct of somebody managing a picture in another person's head, and managing it so carefully that she never got to the part she actually wanted to say. Nobody taught you that on purpose, and nobody has thought to release you from it.
I'm releasing you now. Your niece isn't asking about the water. She's asking about the boat, and you've been in it for years.
You can talk straight past fifteen seconds and describe where you live. The written Word puts the weight on the kingdom you were carried into, and the Holy Spirit makes this is where I actually live now a sentence you can record in a kitchen at midnight.
Declare this over yourself
You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so what follows is not a claim made out of your own authority. It is agreement, said back to God in His own words, while the Holy Spirit carries it. How He orders the rest of it is His to decide, and He answers in His own way and in His own time.
Say this once, slowly, with the phone face down on the counter.
I know what I am for. My faith is not a photograph of somebody else in reverse. The Word of God says I was delivered from darkness and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son, so I have an address and not only an escape. The Holy Spirit makes that place live in me today, and not only on a page. I don't have to manage somebody's wrong picture before I'm allowed to describe the real one. I keep every clarification the people who formed me gave me, and I hold this over it rather than against it. When she rings me this morning, I can tell her about the boat.
Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.
This message is free. Nothing here is locked, nothing is for sale, and nothing is being asked of you.
Colossians 1:13-14
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
