I Keep Trying To Make It Look Like Theirs

You straighten the cushions on a Tuesday night and there is nobody coming.

That is the whole of it and it is worth looking at directly, because it happens at about half past nine, alone, in a room that will not be seen by another human being before Thursday at the earliest.

The cushions go straight. The blanket gets folded. The thing on the table gets squared up. And then the light goes off and you go up.

I want to ask the question that never gets asked in that eleven minutes, because it is the only question in this article.

Who is it for?

And the answer is not nobody, which is what a person says quickly. There is somebody. She is in the doorway, she has been there for years, and she is made out of every house you have ever been inside and every picture you have ever looked at and a comment somebody made in about 2009.

She is not real, and she is the most consistent presence in your evenings.

This is the last of the seven articles on this site, and everything the other six have been circling comes down to this one, so I am going to be as plain as I know how.

She is not coming. There is no inspection. It has never been scheduled and it is never going to take place.

Martha, Martha

There is a moment in Luke where the Lord says a woman's name twice, and the fact that He says it twice is the whole of what He is doing.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. (Luke 10:41, King James Version)

Martha, Martha.

Nobody says a name twice to tell somebody off. That is not what the doubling is for and it never has been. A name said twice is what you do when you are about to say something true to somebody you are fond of, and you want them to know before you start that you are on their side.

You are somebody whose name God would say twice before He said anything else, and a correction from Him has never once come without the fondness in front of it. Luke 10:41 has the name doubled before a single word of the substance, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a woman folding a blanket at half past nine.

Now look at the words He actually uses, because they are diagnostic rather than accusing.

Careful and troubled. Not lazy, not vain, not wrong. Careful, which means full of care, and troubled, which means something is going on inside her rather than something being wrong with her.

He is describing what it is like to be her. He is not telling her off for the house.

You have a God who describes what a thing is like to carry rather than what is wrong with the one carrying it, and being full of care has never once been the same as being at fault. The Spirit of God is the one who names a condition without accusing anybody of it, and it is written in Luke 10:41 that the words were careful and troubled.

An audience that never arrives cannot be satisfied

Now the thing that the whole of this site has been walking toward, and here it is plainly.

An audience that never arrives cannot be satisfied.

That is not encouragement. It is a structural fact, and it is the reason none of this has ever worked. A real visitor can be satisfied. They come, they sit down, they have a good evening, and the thing is settled. But a viewer who does not arrive cannot ever be satisfied, because satisfaction requires an arrival.

Which means the eleven minutes at half past nine is not progress toward anything. It cannot be. There is no possible evening on which she is finally content, because content requires her to come, and she does not exist.

You are unable to pass an inspection that is never conducted, and eleven minutes a night has never once brought anybody closer to satisfying somebody who is not real. The Holy Spirit is the one who ends a process that had no end in it, and Luke 10:41 names the trouble in the woman rather than the fault in the house.

And here is what she has cost, and it is worth counting once because it is the last article and it should be said.

The other six articles on this site were all about the same woman in the doorway.

The room you cross without sitting in, because she would see it. The house you read as lesser, because she set the standard. The dread before a visit, because she is the one you thought was coming. The rented place you never settled into, because she does not accept temporary. The corner you could not start, because she requires the whole room. The things you kept in boxes, because she does not like clutter.

One imaginary woman, six rooms, and years of a life arranged around her.

You are able to put out one viewer and get six rooms back, and a woman who was never real has never once had any authority over a house. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a house that stops being inspected, and it is written in Luke 10:41 that the Lord said a name twice before He said anything at all about the trouble.

And this, plainly, and it is the last time this site will say it. Your house is not a report on you. Not the state of it, not the standard of it, not what has and has not been done. A room is not a verdict on the woman who lives in it, and it never was, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way in the last paragraph of the last article.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a front room, and the condition of a house has never once been a statement about who lives in it. Luke 10:41 puts the fondness before the diagnosis in Luke 10, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

Leave one thing out

So here is the assignment, and it is the last one, and it is the smallest one in the whole series on purpose.

Leave one thing out tonight that you would normally put away before anybody saw it, and let it still be out in the morning.

One thing. The cup, the blanket as it fell, the thing on the table that is not squared up. Whatever your hand goes to at half past nine.

Leave it. Turn the light off and go up.

You are able to leave a room the way an evening left it, and one cup on a table has never once been a room that was not looked after. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman leaves a room used rather than reset, and Luke 10:41 has the Lord name the trouble in a woman and leave the house entirely alone.

And then let it still be out in the morning.

Because the doorway woman meets you twice a day, at half past nine and at seven, and the seven o'clock meeting is the one that has never once been interrupted.

Come down and see it there. There will be about four seconds where you want to deal with it. Put the kettle on instead and let it stay.

And that is the end of this site's advice, all seven articles of it, in one sentence: leave one thing out, and let it be there in the morning, and let the house be a house that people live in rather than one that is waiting to be seen.

You have a house that people live in, and a room that shows it has never once been anything to answer for. The Spirit of God is the one present at seven in the morning in a room that was not put back, and it is written in Luke 10:41 that He said Martha, Martha, and then spoke about her and not about her house.