He caught himself doing it in a shop queue on Tuesday, and the catching was the whole event.
There had been a small irritation. Somebody ahead of him was taking a long time about a card, and there was the beginning of a familiar thing in him, and then, without any decision at all, the thing turned into something addressed to God. Not a prayer, exactly. Two or three words. And then the queue moved and he paid for his bread.
He was halfway to the car before he registered what had happened, and then he stood by the boot for a second, holding the bread, and thought: I did not do that on purpose.
He remembers when it took enormous effort. There was a period, a few years back, where he read something about turning a wanting toward God rather than following it, and he had tried it deliberately, and it had been like carrying a table up a staircase. He had done it perhaps four times in a month, badly, and had eventually stopped thinking about it as a project.
He has no record of the intervening years. There is no notebook, no moment, nothing to point at.
And the thing he has been asking God about is exactly where it was. He wants that on the table before anything else, because he is a careful man and he can feel a hopeful paragraph coming.
And a friend said last week, entirely kindly: perhaps fast about it again.
He said he would consider it. And what he considered, actually, was a question: what has been happening in the years I was not keeping records of?
If you have caught yourself doing something you no longer have to decide, come and sit in here a while.
Nothing here reinterprets your situation
Let us settle that first, because a careful reader stops at the first oversold sentence, and quite right too.
The thing is where it was. This page does not suggest it has quietly moved and it does not imply that a more attentive man would see progress in it. That would be asking somebody to argue with the plain facts, and it is not what is going on here.
You are not being handled, and your account of it has been accurate throughout. That is not a soft opening. It is written that the Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been present through the whole of the untouched years, and He has never once asked a man to see something that is not there.
There is another location. Tuesday happened in it, in a shop queue, over some bread.
The verse about a capacity that grows unobserved
There is a line in Hebrews about how discernment actually develops, and the mechanism it names is exactly what you noticed.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.Hebrews 5:14
Read the phrase in the middle. By reason of use.
Not by reason of study, and not by a decision made on a particular evening. By use, which means repetition, which means a great many unremarkable instances that nobody counted at the time, producing a capacity that eventually operates without deliberation.
That is a description of how a person becomes able to do something automatically, and the writer treats it as ordinary rather than remarkable. And notice that the exercising is described in the passive: their senses are exercised, which is a thing happening to them rather than a project they ran.
You have a trained capacity that you did not train, and the training was going on in the years you were not counting. I am not saying it to make a shop queue sound spiritual: it is the mechanism the verse names and the voice it uses (Hebrews 5:14), and it is His Spirit, not this page, who does that kind of forming, which is precisely why there is no moment in it to point at.
And it is not a sign about the thing
Here is the plain sentence, because this is exactly where a page like this normally ruins what it has just given.
Tuesday is not a signal. It does not mean the thing is about to move, it is not the beginning of a season, and it tells you nothing at all about the months ahead.
You are carrying no forecast, and nobody here knows what happens next. Scripture says it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power (Acts 1:7), and it is His Spirit who makes that a relief rather than a disappointment, because a true small thing stops belonging to a person the moment it is made into evidence.
And what you went without over the years bought nothing, in either direction. It did not fail and it did not quietly train you instead. There was never a transaction in any of it.
Now the sentence this site says everywhere. Some people must not go without food at all, and being one of them takes nothing away from you. Diabetes, pregnancy, medication, any hard relationship with eating, being underweight, unwell, elderly or simply unsure: speak to your doctor and let their answer be the answer. You are not one step further from God because of what your body needs. Scripture says the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and the Holy Spirit has never once come in a smaller measure to anybody on account of a body.
And if this week has more in it than a page can carry, if you are frightened for yourself, put this down and telephone somebody real: your doctor, a counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if you or anybody near you is in danger tonight. That is not a road around God. That is help He put in the world on purpose.
Here is the turn, and it asks you to conclude nothing about the thing.
You are operating on a capacity that was formed by use, and the forming was not your project. He is not waiting on you to notice and He is not withholding anything until you are more appreciative, because the verse says by reason of use and puts the exercising in the passive voice (Hebrews 5:14). You have permission today to count Tuesday and to leave the thing exactly where it is. The word puts it in your hands, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you (1 Peter 5:7), and it is His Spirit who does that kind of forming across years in which nobody keeps a record.
The thing is where it was. Both sentences stand together and neither cancels the other.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, in your own room, in your own voice. The standing to speak this way is yours in Christ and it is not issued on the strength of a well kept record. Scripture is the ground under it, the Holy Spirit is what makes it living rather than merely precise, and what God does about the thing and when is His, however He answers.
- Thing that stayed exactly where it was, you are real and you are not the whole of the record. By reason of use their senses are exercised, and Hebrews 5:14 names repetition nobody counted and puts the exercising in the passive voice. In the name of Jesus I count Tuesday today and I leave the thing exactly where it is.
- Fear that noticing a small capacity is a consolation prize, you are not God's word about me and you are not standing at my car any longer. It is not for me to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in His own power, and His Spirit is the one making that a relief rather than a disappointment. I am carrying no forecast, and I am consoling myself with nothing, and I am free.
- Father, You have been forming something across years in which I kept no record at all. Your written word says a capacity comes by use and describes the exercising as done to a person (Hebrews 5:14), and Your Spirit is the one who has been doing it. The list is written and nobody will read it, and I am going to go and do something ordinary now.
Hebrews 5:14
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.
