There Is A Box I Have Not Opened In Three Moves

There is a box in that apartment that has been to three addresses and has never been opened.

You know exactly which one. It is at the back of a closet or under something, and it has the tape from two moves ago still on it, and there is handwriting on the side in a marker that has gone faint.

And the reason it has never been opened is not that you do not want what is in it.

It is that opening a box is a thing you do when you are staying, and every one of the last five places has had a feeling of not quite being the one. So the essentials come out, and the rest goes in the closet, and eleven months later it goes back in the van with the tape still on it.

Five moves in seven years does that. Nobody chose it. Jobs move, leases end, prices go up, situations change, and each individual move had a perfectly good reason behind it.

But there is a thing that has quietly happened underneath all of it, and it is worth saying out loud.

You have been camping for seven years.

Not in a dramatic way. In the specific sense that a part of your life has been packed the entire time, waiting for the address where it will be safe to unpack it, and that address has not arrived and there is no date on it.

Tonight we are going to open the box.

Build ye houses, and dwell in them

There is a letter in Jeremiah written to people in exactly this position, and the instruction in it is astonishing.

Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. (Jeremiah 29:5, King James Version)

Now hold on to the context, because the context is what makes this enormous.

That letter is written to exiles. To people who have been taken somewhere they did not choose, who are going home eventually, and who know it. There is a clock running on the whole situation and everybody in that letter knows there is.

You are being spoken to in the same position as the people in that letter, and a temporary address has never once been a place God told anybody to wait in. Jeremiah 29:5 tells people with a clock running to build and to plant, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a woman with a box that has been to three addresses.

Now look at what He actually tells them to do with a temporary situation.

Not endure it. Not hold on. Not minimize your attachment to the place because you will be leaving.

Build houses. Plant gardens. Eat the fruit. Those are all long things. A garden is the least temporary activity available to a human being, and it is the one He names to people who are not staying.

You have permission to sink something into a place you are leaving, and a garden has never once been a foolish thing to plant on borrowed ground. The Spirit of God is the one who tells people with a clock running to plant anyway, and it is written in Jeremiah 29:5 that they were to build and dwell and eat the fruit.

What the sealed box costs

Now let me be specific about the cost, because it is not the box.

The box is one box. The cost is the rule the box represents, and the rule is: nothing here counts until it is permanent.

And a rule like that spreads. It is not confined to a closet. It shows up in whether you get to know a neighbor, whether you register anywhere, whether you put anything on a shelf, whether you find out what the neighborhood is actually like. Everything gets held slightly at arm's length because everything is provisional.

Seven years of that is a lot of life held at arm's length.

You are able to end a rule rather than a habit, and a sealed box has never once been about the objects inside it. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what one closed box is actually representing, and Jeremiah 29:5 tells people who are definitely leaving to build and plant anyway.

And here is the practical piece, and it is the encouraging half.

The rule can be broken with one object. It does not require a decision about staying. It does not require anything to be settled, and nothing about your situation has to be different by Friday.

One thing out of the box, in the open, in the place where you actually live. That is enough to make the rule false, and once it is false in one place it does not fully recover.

You are able to break a seven year rule with one object, and a small act has never once been too small to end something that had been quietly governing a life. The Spirit of God is the one at work in the smallest available act, and it is written in Jeremiah 29:5 that the instruction to people on borrowed time was to build.

And this, plainly, in these words. That apartment is not a report on you. Not on the five moves, not on whether you are settled, not on how the last seven years have gone. A place with a date on it is not a verdict on the woman living in it, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while she is standing in front of a closet.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from an address, and the number of places a person has lived has never once been a statement about who they are. Jeremiah 29:5 tells exiles to plant gardens in Jeremiah 29, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

One thing out of the box

So here is the assignment.

Open the box that has moved three times without being opened, take out one thing, and put it where you will see it every morning.

Open it tonight. Cut the tape. That will be the strangest part, because there is a small ceremony in a box that has stayed shut for years, and cutting it feels bigger than it is.

Look at what is in there. There is a decent chance you will not remember about half of it.

You are opening something that has followed you to three addresses, and a box kept sealed has never once been keeping anything safe that was not already safe. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman cuts tape she has been carrying for years, and Jeremiah 29:5 tells people with a clock on them to build and to plant.

Then take out one thing, and this is where the care goes.

Pick the one you will see in the morning. Not the one that is useful, not the one that ought to come out. The one that, seen at seven in the morning on the way past, will tell you something you need to know.

And then put it where the morning happens. On the shelf by the door. On the counter where the kettle is. Somewhere the route already goes.

Not on a wall. Nothing that needs anything doing to a wall, because that is not the kind of thing this site ever asks and it is not needed here. Standing on a surface is enough.

You are putting one thing where your own morning will find it, and an object on a shelf has never once needed permission from anybody who owns the building. The Spirit of God is the one present in a route through an apartment at seven in the morning, and it is written in Jeremiah 29:5 that they were to build houses and dwell in them.