I Am Living In My Daughter's Spare Room

You have been in that house eight months and you still knock on the kitchen door.

Not loudly. Just the small sound a person makes coming into a room that is not theirs. You do it without deciding to and you would probably deny doing it if somebody said so.

And there is a lot in that small sound.

You came here after she died. It was the right decision and everybody agreed and it was made kindly and quickly and there was not really an alternative. Your daughter meant it. Her husband meant it. The children were pleased.

And every day since, you have been living in somebody else's house, being extremely careful.

Careful about the bathroom. Careful about the television. Careful about the food, and about how long you sit in the kitchen, and about whether you are in the way. You have got very good at it. You could write a manual.

The trouble is that being careful for eight months is not the same as living somewhere, and everybody in that house can feel it without being able to say what it is.

I am not going to tell you to make yourself at home, because that is what people say and it does not mean anything.

I am going to give you two objects and two places to put them, and it will take about six minutes.

Thy people shall be my people

There is a sentence in Ruth said by somebody moving into another family's life, and it is the most complete statement of belonging in the Bible.

Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. (Ruth 1:16, King James Version)

Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. That is the housing clause and it sits right in the middle of it.

You are somebody Scripture would describe as belonging rather than lodging, and moving into a family's house has never once made a person a guest in it. Ruth 1:16 puts lodging and belonging in the same sentence without a gap between them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a man who knocks on his own daughter's kitchen door.

Now look at the direction of that sentence, because it is the thing that will help you most.

Ruth is the one arriving. She is the one with no standing, no claim, no property, and no obvious right to be there. And she is the one who makes the declaration.

She does not wait to be told she belongs. She states it, into a situation where nothing has been settled, and the whole book proceeds from that sentence.

You are able to say where you belong rather than wait to be told, and a person arriving has never once had to be granted a place before taking one. The Spirit of God is the one who moves a person to state a thing that has not been confirmed, and it is written in Ruth 1:16 that she said it first and the rest followed.

What the carefulness is costing everybody

Now the practical part, and it is about the whole house rather than about you.

Your carefulness is being read. It is not invisible. Your daughter sees a man being a guest in her house and she does not know what to do about it, because every offer she makes gets met with the same courteous nothing, and after eight months she has stopped making some of them.

That is not her being cold. That is a person who has run out of ways to say the thing.

You are able to change what a whole household is carrying, and one man's carefulness has never once been a private arrangement. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what his own care is doing in a house, and Ruth 1:16 has the arriving person settle the question herself.

And there is a second thing, and this one is about the children.

They are watching how an adult behaves in a house after something terrible has happened. They will not remember the arrangements. They will remember whether their grandfather lived there or stayed there, and that will be one of the things they know about how a life goes.

You are showing a household something every day without saying a word, and a man in a spare room has never once been unable to teach a family what belonging looks like. The Spirit of God is the one at work in what a house sees without discussing, and it is written in Ruth 1:16 that where one lodges is put beside whose people they are.

And this, plainly, in these words. That room is not a report on you. Not on the years, not on what happened, not on what you did or did not manage to keep hold of. A man in his daughter's spare room is not a verdict on the man, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while he is sitting on the end of a bed.

You are a man whose worth was settled a long way from a spare room, and where a person is living has never once been a statement about who they are. Ruth 1:16 puts lodging and belonging in one sentence in Ruth 1, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

Two objects, two places

So here is the assignment, and it is two objects and it will take six minutes.

Put one thing of yours where you will see it every morning in that room, and one thing of yours somewhere in the shared part of the house.

The first one is easy and it is for you. Something from the old house. Something of hers, if that is what it is. Standing on the surface nearest where you wake, where your eyes go first.

Nothing on a wall. Nothing that changes anything. Standing on something.

You are putting your own life into the room you sleep in, and one object on a surface has never once been an imposition on anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the first four seconds of an older man's morning, and Ruth 1:16 puts where a person lodges into the same sentence as whose people they are.

The second one is the hard one, and it is the whole point.

One thing of yours, somewhere in the shared part of the house. The kitchen, the living room, the hall.

Small. A book you are reading, left on the arm of a chair. A mug that is yours. A photograph on the shelf where their photographs are, standing among them.

It will feel like taking up space. That is precisely what it is, and it is what a person who lives somewhere does, and nobody in that house has been waiting for you to be smaller.

You are taking up an ordinary amount of room in a house you live in, and one book on the arm of a chair has never once been more than a family could carry. The Spirit of God is the one who is present when a man stops being careful, and it is written in Ruth 1:16 that thy people shall be my people was said by the one who had just arrived.