He does not want anybody to think this is about pride, and it is about pride, and he knows that, and knowing it has changed nothing in eleven years.
Walter is seventy-three.
There was a thing about the hall and the way it was let out and who was told what. It ran for about nine months and there were two meetings and Walter said, in the second one, that if it went the way it was going somebody would be out of pocket by the following spring and that it would be the wrong somebody.
He was told, politely, that he was being difficult.
He said his piece once more and then he stopped going.
By the following spring it had happened, more or less exactly as he said it would, and the wrong somebody was out of pocket, and it was sorted out eventually in a way that cost more than it needed to.
Nobody has ever mentioned it to him.
That is the whole of the eleven years, really. Not the money and not the hall. Nobody has ever come round or rung or stopped him in the street and said you were right.
He would like it said. He has never asked for it and he would be mortified if anybody knew he wanted it, and if it were said now he suspects he would go red and change the subject.
But he would like it said.
And he has not been in that building in eleven years, and his wife goes, and he drops her off and picks her up, and has done four hundred times.
He sits in the car park.
And in April, sitting in the car with the engine off in the rain, waiting, he thought a sentence that has not left him since: I have given eleven years to a conversation that is never going to happen, and I am the only one in it.
And you may be waiting for something to be said. And it may be entirely fair that you should want it.
God opens the matter Himself rather than waiting for a concession
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it eleven years and it was never yours.
You are not shut out. You never were, and no unspoken admission has ever been the thing holding a man outside. Scripture has God Himself opening the conversation with people who are plainly in the wrong, and He is the one who speaks first, and it is the Holy Spirit, not somebody finally saying it, who moves a person. Set it down here on this bench. It is heavy and you have had it in the car four hundred times.
Now hear it, and hear that He begins it.
Come now, let us settle the matter, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.Isaiah 1:18
Come now, let us settle the matter.
He is the injured party in that chapter, unmistakably, and He is the one who opens His mouth first. He does not wait to be approached and He does not require the other side to arrive with an account of what they did.
And notice the tone of it. It is not come and grovel. It is the language of two people sitting down, offered by the one who has every right to wait, and the offer contains the outcome before the conversation starts.
He speaks first, and He has always been the one who speaks first. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who moves a man off a bench, and He has never once waited for an apology He was owed.
Now let me be careful here, because there are ditches on both sides and I have no intention of putting you in either.
Nothing here says you were wrong about the hall. You were not. You said what would happen and it happened, and you said it once and then again and then you stopped, which is more restraint than most men manage. Scripture is not against a man who tells the truth in a meeting and His Spirit gave him the eye to see it.
And nothing here says the people who did not come and say it are hard. They are probably not. Most people never come and say it, about anything, and the reason is usually awkwardness rather than contempt, and I will not make villains of a committee for you.
The point is narrower and it is about the eleven years, and Scripture has God opening a matter He was owed an apology for, and His Spirit is the one who does the moving.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. You would go red if anybody said it.
You know that already. Which means the thing you have been waiting eleven years for is a thing you could not actually receive if it came, and that is not a failure in you, it is simply how being right sits in a man. His Spirit has been in that car park four hundred times and He has never once required the sentence to be said before He would work.
So here is the turn, and nobody has to say anything to you.
Go, or eat, or pray, without waiting to be asked and without announcing it to anybody.
Take the last one. Pray, in the car, in the car park, on a Sunday morning, and do it without laying out the case first.
That is the whole of it. Not walking in, which is yours to decide and not mine to hand you. Not raising it with anybody, which after eleven years would be a large thing and should not be done because a page suggested it.
One prayer, in the car, without the case.
He is the one who opens the matter, and He was the one owed. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who moves a man, and neither of them has ever waited on a concession.
I am not going to tell you that anybody will ever say it or what would happen if you went in. 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 end well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is God going first with people who were plainly in the wrong.
Go without waiting to be asked.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing on your own, out loud, in ordinary words. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was yours in all eleven 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.
- Sentence I have been waiting eleven years to hear, nobody is ever going to say you and I would go red if they did. In the name of Jesus I set you down on this bench, because the invitation still stands, and nobody withdrew it and I do not need a new one to come.
- Conversation I have been having on my own in a car park four hundred times, you were never once put beside Scripture. It is written, come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord, and He is the injured party and He is the one who speaks first.
- Lord, You go first with people who are plainly in the wrong, and Your Spirit is the one who moves a man off a bench. You have never waited for an apology You were owed, and I am praying in that car park on Sunday without the case.
Isaiah 1:18
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