A Room I Walk Through And Never Sit In

There is a room in your house that you cross about nine times a day.

You go through it to get to the kitchen. You go back through it carrying something. You pass through it in the morning without switching the light on, because you know where everything is by feel, and there is no reason to light a room you are not stopping in.

And you have not sat down in it since about March.

If somebody asked you why, you would have an answer ready. You would say it is not finished. You would say you have been meaning to do something about it. You would probably gesture at one particular thing, the thing that has been wrong with that room for four years, and the other person would nod, and the conversation would move on.

But that answer has been the same answer for four years, and a reason that never changes and never gets acted on is not a reason. It is a door somebody closed and then explained.

So let me say the thing plainly at the start, because everything else here depends on it.

The room is not being avoided because it is unfinished. It is being avoided because sitting in it produces a particular feeling, and at some point it emerged that walking through quickly does not, and your feet learned the difference before your mind was ever consulted.

That is not a decorating problem. Nothing that could be brought into the house would touch it.

And I am not going to tell you to redo the room, because that is what everybody says, and it is the advice that guarantees nothing happens. A whole room is a project, and a project needs a weekend and help lifting things, and those have not arrived, and so the room stays shut for another year.

We are going to do something much smaller and much stranger.

We are going to go and sit in it first, and change something second.

Through wisdom is an house builded

There is a line in Proverbs about building a house that is not really about building.

Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: (Proverbs 24:3, King James Version)

Now look at what is doing the work in that sentence. Not money. Not materials. Not taste, not skill, not the right pieces in the right places.

Wisdom and understanding. Those are both words about knowing something rightly, and they are the two things named as the actual construction of a house.

You are allowed to be in that room, and nothing in it has ever once had to be finished before you were. Proverbs 24:3 names wisdom and understanding as the actual construction of a house, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what a room in her own home is really about.

And the second verb is worth stopping on. Established. That is not the same as built. Built is put up. Established is settled, made firm, made into something that holds.

A house can be entirely built and not remotely established, and I suspect you know exactly what that looks like, because you may be sitting in one.

So here is the question that room is actually asking you, and it is not about a couch.

What do you understand about that room? Because there is something. There is a reason a body speeds up crossing it. It might be who used to sit in there. It might be that it was going to be for something that never happened. It might be that it is the room people would see first, so it became the room that could most easily shame you.

You have understanding available about your own house, and a room has never once been solved by furniture when the thing in the way was never furniture. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a person what a room is really about, and it is written in Proverbs 24:3 that a house is established by understanding.

Occupation comes before improvement

Here is the practical reversal, and it is the whole of this article.

The order is backwards, and so is almost everybody's, and so is every piece of advice on this subject that has ever been offered.

The usual order is: fix the room, then use the room. Get it right, then enjoy it. That order sounds obviously correct and it is why nothing has moved in four years, because the fixing never happens, so the using never starts.

You are able to occupy a room before it is finished, and the fixing has never once had to come first. The written word puts understanding before establishment rather than after it in Proverbs 24:3, and the Spirit of God is present with a woman sitting in a room she has been crossing for years.

The order that works is the opposite. Occupy it first. Improve it afterward, from inside.

And there is a reason for that beyond simple encouragement. A room you sit in tells you what it needs. A room you cross tells you nothing at all. Planning a space from a standing position while moving through it at speed is why the plan has never got past that one thing that has been wrong for four years.

Sit in it for ten minutes and it will turn out that the light is in the wrong place, or that the chair is facing the wrong way, or that there is nowhere at all to put a cup down. Those are small, real, solvable things, and not one of them is visible from the doorway.

You are the person that room will report to once somebody sits in it, and a doorway has never once been able to tell anybody what a room needs. The Holy Spirit is the one who is in there for the ten minutes, and Proverbs 24:3 makes understanding the thing that establishes a house.

And this, plainly, because it is the ground everything else stands on.

The state of that room is not a report on you. Not on your taste, not on your effort, not on your worth, not on whether you have made a decent life. A room that a woman crosses quickly is not a verdict on the woman, and I am not going to allow it to be read as one while we are in there.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from that room, and a space in a house has never once been a verdict on the person living in it. Proverbs 24:3 puts the building of a house into wisdom and understanding rather than into its contents, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is standing in the doorway with you.

Ten minutes, and change one thing

So here is the assignment, and the order of the two halves is the point.

Sit in that room for ten minutes tonight and change one thing before you get up.

Sit down first. In the room, properly, in a chair, for ten minutes. Not standing in the doorway assessing it, which is what has been happening for four years, and which is a different activity entirely.

Take something in if it helps. A cup, a book that is not going to get read. Put a lamp on. Sit down.

You are able to sit in a room for ten minutes without resolving anything, and being somewhere has never once required a person to have settled it first. The Spirit of God is the one in the chair beside a woman doing this for the first time, and it is written in Proverbs 24:3 that understanding is what establishes a house.

The feeling that has been avoided will arrive in the first two minutes. That is expected. Let it be there and stay in the chair anyway. Nothing is being resolved tonight and I am not going to pretend ten minutes settles anything.

Then, before you get up, change one thing.

One. Move the chair round so it faces the window. Take the thing off the shelf that has never been liked. Put a lamp somewhere else. Bring in a cushion from another room.

It does not have to be an improvement. It has to be a change, made by you, from inside the room, while sitting in it. That is what makes the room yours again rather than a space you are behind on.

You are able to change one thing from inside a room rather than plan a whole one from the door, and a room has never once needed to be finished before it could be used. Proverbs 24:3 puts understanding before the house being established, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting in there for the ten minutes.