The thing he brokered is still holding, four years on, which is why none of this makes sense to him.
Sami spent eleven months on it. Two men who had built something together and then could not be in a room, and about forty other people arranged behind them without ever deciding to be, and a mess that was going to take the whole thing down.
He did not set out to do it. He was simply the one both of them would still talk to, and one conversation turned into a second one, and by the end of it he had spent eleven months carrying sentences back and forth and taking the heat out of them on the way.
And it worked.
They are not friends. Nobody expected friends. But the thing they built survived, and the forty people are still in one place, and two of them who had stopped speaking entirely now nod at each other and have twice had a short conversation about something ordinary.
By any measure Sami could name, it worked.
And he has not been asked to anything by either of them in three years.
Not excluded. Nobody has been unkind and nobody would admit to anything if you asked them, and Sami would be embarrassed to raise it and never will.
It is simply that in the head of the first man, Sami is somebody who understood the other one a bit too well. And in the head of the second man, exactly the same thing in the other direction. Neither of them thinks he betrayed anybody. Both of them, without ever saying it or possibly knowing it, have filed him slightly on the far side.
He is forty-two.
And what he has been sitting with since the spring is not resentment. It is a much stranger thing, which is the question of whether he would do it again, and the fact that he does not know.
And you may have your own eleven months. Yours may have worked or it may not, and either way you may have discovered that the man in the middle does not end up in either room.
He names the peacemaker before He names the cost
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it for three years and it was never yours.
You are not somebody's spare loyalty. You never were. Scripture names the peacemaker plainly and names what they are called, and it is the Holy Spirit, not anybody's filing, who decides whose you are. Set that down here in the courtyard. It is heavy and it has been at your shoulder since the spring.
Now hear the line, and hear what it says a peacemaker gets.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.Matthew 5:9
They will be called children of God.
Not thanked. Not welcomed. Not invited to things afterward by the two people they carried sentences between for eleven months.
Called children of God, which is a statement about whose family a person belongs to, said over exactly the person whose belonging has just been put in question by everybody.
That is not an accident of wording. It is the answer to the specific injury. The peacemaker is the one who ends up looking like he might belong to the other side, and the sentence handed to him is about where he actually belongs.
And it is said over you, at forty-two, three years into not being asked. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who makes it so, and He has never once accepted anybody else's filing of you.
Now let me be careful here, because there is a ditch on this side and I have no intention of putting you in it.
Nothing here says either of those men did something wicked. They did not. Neither of them decided anything about you and both of them would be genuinely surprised and probably distressed, and Scripture does not need a villain in this and neither does your account of it.
And nothing here says you should raise it with them, or explain yourself, or go and ask why you are not asked. That is unlikely to go the way you want and it is not what this page is for.
The point is only that the middle costs, and Scripture prices it in and then says what the person in the middle is called. His Spirit is the one who has been holding that name over you for three years.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. The question you cannot answer is not whether it was worth it.
It is whether you are willing to be that again, knowing the price this time, and that is a real question and a heavy one and you are not weak for finding it hard. His Spirit is not pressing you for an answer today and He was in every one of the eleven months.
So here is the turn, and it is one person and it does not require either of them.
Contact one person you have stopped contacting. His word gives you the small crossing and His Spirit carries whatever follows it.
That is the whole of it. Not one of the two men. Not an explanation of the eleven months, and not a message designed to find out whether you are still welcome. One person, one message, about nothing much.
And hear this plainly, because it matters more than any of it: if reaching that person would not be safe for you, or would put you back inside something you got out of for good reason, do not. Choose somebody else, or say their name to God and leave it there. Nothing on this page is worth harm and God is not asking for any.
You are called a child of God today, whatever anybody has filed. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who says it over you, and neither of them waits for an invitation to arrive.
I am not going to tell you whether either room opens again or whether you would do it a second time. That belongs to God and He works in His own way and in His own timing, and I will not put a promise in His mouth so this page can close well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is a name that was given to the one in the middle on purpose.
Send the message. You already belong somewhere.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing on your own, out loud. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it has been true through all three years of not being asked. Scripture is what these lines stand on, His Spirit is the one who makes them live, and the outcome is His, answered in His own way and in His own timing.
- Filing that made both sides think I am the other side, you were never a decision either of them made and you are not where I belong. In the name of Jesus I set you down in this courtyard, because unity was the whole point and I still want it, and wanting it has cost me and I am not giving it up.
- Question of whether I would do it again, you are real and you are heavy and you do not have to be answered tonight. Scripture calls the peacemaker a child of God, which is a sentence about whose family somebody belongs to, said over the exact person everybody has stopped being sure about.
- Lord, You named the peacemakers and Your Spirit is the one who says it over me, and You have never once accepted anybody else's filing. I belong to You in the middle, and I am contacting one person this week.
Matthew 5:9
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.