She worked out in the summer that she knows eleven things nobody else in that building knows all of.
Not gossip. Marva does not carry gossip and everybody there would tell you so, and it is precisely because she does not that they all bring it to her.
Eleven separate things. Two people who are not speaking and why. A woman who is quietly furious about a decision from four years ago and has never said so to anybody who could do anything about it. A man who thinks somebody undermined him and is almost certainly wrong. A family who left and the actual reason rather than the reason that got said.
All of it arrives at her, in kitchens and car parks and once at a graveside, and it stops there, because Marva does not carry it on.
She is sixty and she has been the person you tell for about twenty-five years.
And what she saw in the summer, standing in that hall on her own after everybody had gone, is that not one of the eleven has moved.
Not one. Some of them are eleven years old. They have all been told to her, in some cases repeatedly, in some cases by both parties who do not know the other has told her, and every single one of them is exactly where it was when it arrived.
She has been treating that as her job well done. Nothing has spread. Nothing has blown up. She has kept things quiet for a quarter of a century and there are people in that building who have no idea how much they owe her.
And she has begun to suspect, and this is what she cannot put down, that quiet is not the same as reconciled, and that she has become the place where things go to be safely kept rather than the place where anything gets better.
She said it out loud in that empty hall: I am not a bridge. I am a cupboard.
And you may know that hall. You may be the one people tell, and you may be scrupulous about it, and you may know a great many things that have never once moved.
The reconciling belongs to God, and what is given to a person is a ministry
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it for twenty-five years and it was never yours.
You are not the one who reconciles anybody. You never were. Scripture is exact about who does that and about what a person is handed instead, and it is the Holy Spirit, not your discretion, who moves anything between two people. Set it down here in the hall. It is heavy, and eleven things is a great deal for one woman.
Now hear the sentence, and hear how carefully it divides the work.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.2 Corinthians 5:18
Read the two halves.
God reconciled us. That is the verb, and it belongs to Him, and it is in the past tense and it is finished and nobody assisted.
And gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is what is handed over. A ministry, which is a service: something a person does in the direction of the thing God has done.
Not the reconciling. The ministry of it.
Which means that for twenty-five years you have been carrying a job description you were never given, and the reason nothing has moved is not that you have done the ministry badly. It is that you have been doing the other one, and the other one cannot be done by a person, and nobody could have told you because everybody in that building was glad you were doing it.
That is written, and His Spirit is the one who does the reconciling, and He has never once put eleven things into a cupboard and left them there.
Now let me be careful, because there is a ditch on this side and I have no intention of putting you in it.
Nothing here says you should start telling people things. You should not. What has been told to you was told in confidence and it stays there, and a woman who begins repeating what she has been trusted with is not a bridge either, she is a fire.
And nothing here says the twenty-five years were wasted. Things have not blown up that would have, and there are marriages and friendships in that building that survived a bad year because you did not pass something on, and God is not scornful of any of it.
The point is only about which job it is, and Scripture divides it precisely, and His Spirit is the one holding the half that has never been yours.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. The word you used in that hall was too hard on yourself.
A cupboard does not care what is in it. You have cared about every one of the eleven, for years, in a way that has cost you sleep, and that is not a cupboard, it is a woman carrying eleven people's worst weeks with nowhere to put them. His Spirit has been in that hall with you and He knows all eleven, and He has not been idle about any of them.
So here is the turn, and it is one person and it does not involve any of the eleven.
Contact one person you have stopped contacting. His word gives you the ministry and His Spirit does the reconciling.
That is the whole of it. Not a decision about anything anybody told you, which stays exactly where it is and is not yours to move. Not a conversation with either party of anything. One person you have gone quiet with, one message, about nothing much.
And hear this plainly, because it matters more than the rest: if reaching that person would not be safe for you, do not. Choose somebody else, or say their name to God and stop there. Nothing on this page is worth harm and God has not asked for any.
You have been handed a ministry and not a verb. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who does the reconciling, and neither of them ever asked you to hold eleven things for twenty-five years.
I am not going to tell you what happens to any of the eleven, or when, or whether. That belongs entirely 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 end well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is the smaller half, which is the only one anybody was ever given.
One message. Not eleven things.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing in that hall, or in your own kitchen, out loud. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was true through all twenty-five years. 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.
- Eleven things nobody else knows all of, you have been kept safely and not one of you has moved. In the name of Jesus I set you down in this hall, because unity was the whole point and I still want it, and wanting it has cost me and I am not giving it up.
- Word cupboard, you were too hard on a woman who has lost sleep over every one of them. Scripture says God reconciled us and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, and the verb is His and the ministry is the part with my name on it.
- Lord, You do the reconciling and Your Spirit is the one who moves anything between two people, and You know all eleven and You have not been idle. The ministry is my size, and I am contacting one person this week.
2 Corinthians 5:18
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.