I Have Learned To Walk Around It

Your body knows about it before your mind does.

You come into that room and you go slightly left, and then slightly back again, and you have done it so many thousands of times that it does not read as avoiding anything. It reads as walking.

But there is a thing in that room. You know exactly which one. The chair that is not safe to sit in properly. The drawer that comes out at an angle. The lamp that only works if you hold the cord a certain way. The whatever it is that stopped working years ago and never got dealt with.

And here is what interests me, and it is the actual subject of this article.

The broken thing is not the problem. It is a small object and it has one fault.

The problem is that the whole room has quietly reorganized itself around it. The route bends. The good chair is now placed where it is because of where the bad one is. Nothing gets put on that surface. Guests get steered. Your own family walks the same bent line without ever knowing why.

One faulty object has been given jurisdiction over an entire room, and nobody in the house ever voted on that.

So tonight we are going to take some of that jurisdiction back, and we are going to do it without touching the broken thing at all.

A bruised reed shall he not break

There is a line in Isaiah about how God handles damaged things, and it is worth reading twice.

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. (Isaiah 42:3, King James Version)

Two damaged objects, side by side. A reed that is bent. A wick that has gone to smoke.

Both of them are, by any practical standard, finished. A bent reed does not stand. A smoking wick is not giving light. Anybody sensible snaps the one and pinches out the other, because that is what you do with a thing that has stopped doing its job.

You are held by a God who does not deal with damage by removal, and a fault in something has never once been the whole account of it in His hands. Isaiah 42:3 refuses two obvious disposals in one sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who applies that to a room where something has been broken for four years.

Now look at what the verse does not do, because this is the part that matters for your room.

It does not say the reed gets fixed. There is no repair in that sentence. It says the reed does not get broken, which is a different thing entirely.

The bent reed stays bent. The flax stays smoking. And neither of them is discarded, and neither of them is presented as a failure, and the sentence moves straight on to something else that God is doing.

You are able to live alongside something bent without it having to be mended first, and an unrepaired thing has never once been a reason to stop using a room. The Spirit of God is the one who leaves a bruised reed standing, and it is written in Isaiah 42:3 that He neither breaks it nor pretends it is not bent.

Jurisdiction

Let me put a word on what has actually happened, because naming it takes most of its power away.

Jurisdiction. The broken thing has jurisdiction over that room.

That is not a metaphor. Look at the practical facts. The route bends. The furniture is placed around it. Nothing is put on it. Conversation moves away from it when a visitor gets close. Your household plans in small ways around one object.

An object that does not work has been given authority over a space that does.

You are the one who holds authority in that room, and a faulty object has never once been able to take it except by being handed it. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what has quietly been running a room, and Isaiah 42:3 has God dealing with a damaged thing without letting it govern anything.

And here is the thing about fixing it, which is what everybody's advice will be.

The fact that it could be fixed has been known for four years. Knowing has never been the missing piece. It is not fixed because fixing it belongs to a category of jobs that require a decision, a plan, possibly a person, and probably a Saturday, and none of those have come together, and that is ordinary and it is not a character flaw.

So we are not going to make tonight depend on it.

You are able to change what a room is like without solving the thing at the middle of it, and a whole room has never once had to wait on one repair. The Spirit of God is the one who works in the room as it stands, and it is written in Isaiah 42:3 that a bent reed is left standing and the work carries on around it.

And here is the plainest thing I have to say tonight.

That object is not a report on you. It is not a running note about what you have not got to, or what you cannot afford, or who is not in the house to deal with it. A broken lamp in a room is a broken lamp, and I am not going to let it be read as a description of the woman who lives there.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from that corner, and a broken thing in a room has never once been a verdict on the person walking around it. The written word refuses to break a bruised reed in Isaiah 42:3, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is standing in that room with you.

Ten minutes and something else

So here is the assignment, and the point of it is the word else.

Sit in that room for ten minutes tonight and move something other than the broken thing before you get up.

Sit down. Ten minutes on a clock, in that room, not on the way through it.

And while you are there, watch your own route. Notice how the furniture sits. Notice where the bend is. This is not a criticism exercise. It is a survey, and there is a difference.

You are surveying a room rather than being judged by it, and ten minutes of honest looking has never once been the same thing as an inspection. The Holy Spirit is the one sitting in there with a woman who is seeing the shape of her own route for the first time, and Isaiah 42:3 has God looking at a damaged thing without breaking it.

Then, before you get up, move something else.

Not the broken thing. Something near it. Turn the good chair so it faces the room rather than away from the corner. Put something on the surface that has been kept clear. Move a lamp so the light no longer points at the fault.

One move, and it must be something other than the object, because the whole discipline here is proving that the room is bigger than its worst piece.

You are shifting a room around something rather than waiting on it, and one other thing moved has never once been a small act in a house that has been bending for four years. The Spirit of God is the one at work in a chair turned six inches, and Isaiah 42:3 keeps the bent reed standing while the work goes on.